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Industry Overview and Key Issues Interviews With Industry Professionals Simon Waring: International Mkg. Director, Food For Britain As someone whose full-time job it is to promote UK producers, Simon enjoys talking about the strong position that UK producers currently enjoy. This position has come at some effort, in the light of BSE and 'foot & mouth'. Simon talks about the importance UK producers attach to demonstrating high standards on the international platform, particularly as there is still nervousness amongst some consumers about some categories of food and drink. A strong export business is particularly important to UK producers, as the UK business is susceptible to attack from overseas suppliers, due to the the compactness of the UK market with a small number of supermarkets buying in very high volumes. Rick Pendrith: Editor, Food Manufacture As editor of a leading food industry publication, Rick feels every ripple in the business through the budgets of his advertisers, and in the stories in his pages. He echoes comments made by Simon, that the closer producers are to 'value add' products (compared to simply packaging raw materiels, for example) the better they are doing. Rick sees the increasing burden on food producers, from generally more competitive markets, to the increasing burden of legislation. Following the response to the Curry Commission, the industry is looking at a restructure of the whole supply chain, from farming through to the retailers. "we are seeing a change in how we look at the issue of traceability, from 'farm to fork' to 'fork to farm, and we wait to see what impact this will have on food production businesses". |
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