Consumers and citizens

To strengthen confidence in the sector, the food processing industry must engage in more effective discussion with consumers and citizens. That’s the most important conclusion in the report entitled Spreek Smakelijk (literally: ‘Talk tastily’) that was published by the Federation of the Netherlands Food Industry (FNLI) in collaboration with Roland Berger in late April. An FNLI project named Een open gesprek over voedsel (‘An open conversation about food’) is aimed at kick-starting a broader dialogue between the food industry and society as a whole.

The report has got it spot on: there is a sizeable rift between the sector and society. The food processing industry faces questions and demands from consumers about things like price, flavour, product composition and convenience, yet also from citizens who justifiably ask and express their concerns about health, animal welfare and fair trade. 

This once again clearly underlines the importance of communication. How much do we actually know about our colleagues in food? News items are scanned quickly and we often lack the time to read longer articles. 

Within the OSV we bring people together to enter into dialogue, and in our magazine and on our website we highlight one or more companies every month – short and to the point! At the end of the day, we’re all struggling with the same problems. We can learn a lot from one another and reinforce each other.

For me, this year will be characterised by ‘a tour of the fields’. Every month I’m visiting a number of OSV/YFM members to get a deeper insight into what’s going on within their companies. By sharing knowledge, we can often find solutions that are obvious to others. It’s not actually that difficult, as long as you know where you can find the knowledge you need.

Saskia Stender