The Food industry is important and worthy of more serious debate

I love food, it's a fascinating topic which cuts across borders,Geo politics, ecology, history,culture,trade,economics, farming, animal welfare ,and more....

I am lucky enough to have spent almost all of my marketing career in the food business across different countries and food categories, but there were times when it felt certainly less glamorous than working in other sectors, not to be mentioned at social gatherings....

Over recent years howeverI have tended to jump in and defend it from the increasing media negativity surrounding it,despite its shortcomings.

So let's start with the important stuff...food is literally a matter of life and death;the latest smartphone , app, handbag, car and so forth are not...does any other industry come close to that?

On the flip side there are a few criminals in our industry who deliberately peddle dangerous or even potentially deadly chemicals passed off as food products to innocent people around the world. Such acts should in some cases be treated as attempted mass murder by the authorities, which might just act as a deterrent.

The vast majority of food companies do not ,contrary to some articles you might see in the media , set out to deliberately harm the health of their consumers...that would be a stupid business model, surely, apart from the ethical issues.

Food stories in the media too often seem to be presented as scare stories, placing insufficient share of the responsibility on the consumer who chooses to buy and consume ,or the need for good education at home and in schools.

Similarly, stories are often not properly supported by robust ,proven scientific data...in the last month alone I have "consumed" scare stories about the risk of arsenic poisoning from eating rice( see my earlier blog on this topic) and about how vegetable fats are making "us " all ill...or how we are all being pretty much force fed sugary fizzy drinks....

Let's have more education,more qualified nutritional and dietary advice,more balanced reporting, more personal responsibility along with choices , and of course true corporate social responsibility .


If you are interested enough then fact check the data in your country about the popularity of" free from" foods ( no gluten, dairy ,sugar etc.,)and compare with the incidence of medically diagnosed intolerance....It makes interesting reading ,certainly here in the UK. I read an article just yesterday about this in the Times about the number of people in the UK claiming to be Lactose intolerant versus those actually professionally diagnosed...

There are other issues as well....

The scientific and unscientific communities both seem to change the goal posts and advice with alarming regularityabout which foods or diets are good or bad for us...people are getting confused,too much noise.


Equally seriously, how to stop good,edible fresh food being scrapped or dumped in order to meet absurd "beauty pageant " appearance criteria from customers, or to artificially bolster market prices instead of ensuring farmers can simply get a fair reward for their hard work..

So food industry, we do important work and also sometimes trivial work (OK, chocolate is pretty serious for me, if not truly existential), but could we do much more ..isn't that what so called "purpose based" businesses should be doing?

Where's the Brandbuilding/ marketing angle on this? Responsibility towards the long term welfare of our consumers and our planet is both the right thing to do as well as the best business strategy...just look at the the gushing feedback for Unilever and it's ethical business model following the recent failed take over attempt...