Foodprocessing

We of all people know that lots of things can go wrong in the food industry. Now our sector is once again in the news, this time because of a slaughterhouse in Tielt, and all slaughterhouses are being tarred with the same brush. What can you do to protect yourself against external forces like these? You yourself have got everything under control, and yet you still have to go on the defensive.

As mentioned elsewhere this month, lots of knowledge was shared during the Partners4Food event, which I also had the privilege of being able to attend. One of the things I especially love is listening to everyone’s tales during the networking drinks session, so I savoured every juicy detail. 

One story that made a particular impression on me, however, was about a processing company that got hacked. The company was offline for a whole day…terrible. Just imagine, all your systems are down, you have no access, the production lines are at a standstill and you can’t supply your customers. Plus how do you reach those customers to inform them? All their phone numbers are stored in the CRM system, which you can’t access. Thanks to everyone pulling out all the stops, aided by some creative thinking and order dockets that had luckily been printed out before the hack, the damage could be minimised. But it took until the end of the day for the system to be restored from the back-up and the company to resume operations.  

And consumers can make mistakes too. On my recent skiing holiday in France, my Chinese sister-in-law ordered her steak ‘well done’. You should never say that to a Frenchman. We could all clearly see the revulsion on his face. My nephew Maurice summed it up beautifully: “First you kill the cow and then you kill the meat”.

Saskia Stender