food microconsulting – Transparency
The Food Industry now has no choice but to be(come) transparent, but is it ready?
Food micro consulting gives to big opportunity to people, how can they consult and get advice from food micro consulting that’s gives advice to normal people who do not have access to traditional consulting. I give simple, fast, direct, affordable and always with a smile. And advise only on matter where I can bring some added value and also food micro consulting gives to you; how you can build your own food industry professionals take strategic decisions in their business and career.
This is a very worrying indicator of how distrustful consumers have become toward the food industry. Decades of recipes optimisation, not entirely safe ingredients, health issues, environmental adverse stories (adverse environmental impact stories), even fraud (horse-gate, contaminated milk…) have painted a somehow bleak picture. Not all companies are mistrusted but overall, like with Modern Trade (for other reasons), consumers are weary.
To make things worse, due to heavy lobbying and a lack of clear, reliable scientific messages (it is changing now) consumers are utterly lost when it comes to what a healthy diet should be. Most categories have been funding pseudo-scientific research to prove that their products are good for one’s diet. This has resulted, over the last 20 years, in conflicting messages about sugar, fat, protein, dairy, meat, fibre, nutrients, etc. Consumers are anything but stupid and after having learned from the tobacco industry that manipulation of scientific evidence is just a question of money they are now most circumspect when it comes to deciding what is good for them.
Not that the situation differs much from what it was 40 years ago (I can still remember my parents’ friends refusing to eat frozen food when it was introduced in France) but the internet and Social Media have been invented in the meantime, giving more information and power to the consuming end of the chain.
In other words, consumers are lost, distrustful and afraid. They are seeking refuge in the only thing that they can: people they know (the same way that some millennials use Facebook as their main source of information because it comes from their friends) or people whom they find less corrupted than the big industry players. Farmers, small, organic, vegan, and natural shops.
They do not have enough time (nor often the ability) to cook (to manage their diet properly) and must still rely on processed food. Yet whereas 20 years ago processed food was exciting it has now become suspicious. There obviously are big differences depending on countries, socio-cultural heritage and even Brands/Companies but this worrying trend is a widespread reality.
Food Industry professionals must realise that if 20 years ago it was possible to be only approximately transparent this time is over. Consumers expect to know what is in the product (barcode scanning apps exist), how and where it is produced, where the ingredients come from (you may expect legislation on ingredient list to become more demanding), if they are planet-friendly, if animal rights are observed etc. Companies will soon be rated as much based on their Corporate Responsibility as on the quality of their products.
The problem is that the Food Industry is not ready. Given its relatively small margins it did not invest in the necessary information systems. Its people skills and training have been largely neglected and reliable operations unfortunately exist only within a few Companies. There is little hope that it will be up to providing the level of information required by its consumers. To make matters worse, supply chains are often opaque (horse-gate scandal) some information doubtful (certified non-GMO soya beans?) and some practices (for instance, but not only, in the meat and dairy industry) better not explained in too many details to the consumers.
Where does this leave us? With some turbulent times ahead. Some companies will invest in such transparency and will gain real advantage from it. But most will drag their feet for financial and cultural reasons or a lack of understanding that this change in consumer’s demand is real. An industry that has been mostly “driving” its consumers for the last 100 years will find it difficult to have to follow.
Interesting times ahead, indeed………
Your food microconsultant,
Olivier