About building materials and investments

Food and construction are inextricably linked. Look at how we formulate it: a meal is ‘built’ from food, which in turn contains nutrients as fuel and ‘building’ materials. And a building material like protein, in turn, is made up of amino acids. 

A problem has arisen with these building materials, though. We all take a bit too much of it. We are becoming too fat. Our food is also too salty, too sweet and too greasy, which is also unhealthy. Everyone agrees that we need to make a change. That is why the ‘Product Composition Improvement Agreement’ was concluded in 2014. The industry set itself the goal to make the products less salty, sweet and greasy. We aren’t quite there yet; reformulation is difficult. You can’t simply leave out ingredients or replace them with another. Before you know it, the whole building collapses. 

Meanwhile, the construction sector is doing well. And with that, I mean the sector that works with building materials such as stone, steel, concrete and wood. Turnover in the construction industry has been increasing continuously for the past 14 quarters. In the first quarter of 2018, it even increased by 8.6 percent relative to a year before (CBS, May 2018). The food sector is also hard at work. In this edition, we have some great real-life stories again. Food companies, architects and engineers talk about all the things involved in such a construction project. Because it is a lot. For instance, how do you still find investors for a new food factory these days?
 
Speaking of food factories... That brings me to our kitchen at home, when we take our time for lunch on Saturday. Jalapeno peppers and dried tomatoes are cut in oil. A large pickle is diced into cubes and there is feta cheese, mozzarella or ordinary Gouda cheese for the enthusiast. The cheese is topped with slices of chorizo sausage. Or ham, or chicken fillet. Then, a layer of crispy lettuce, cucumber and some tomato. Last but not least, the topping: we have all kinds, such as ketchup, piri piri sauce and barbecue sauce. The bottles say ‘sugar free’, but they are still delicious! Reformulation at its finest. But now we quickly press the sandwich together, before the mountain of ingredients collapses.

Judith Witte
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