Innovation and sustainability are the keywords in the FMCG market

KNK PR & Média and Magyar Termék Nonprofit Kft. organised the Agóra conference in the Etyek Film Park.

In his keynote speech Róbert Zsigó, secretary of state responsible for food chain supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture told: They are preparing for sector-based development in the 2021-2027 period, and talks are already underway with various stakeholders from the food industry. Miklós Andorka, strategic director of MAPI Hungarian Development Agency Zrt. spoke about the new funding opportunities and the changes that can be expected, calling attention to the new European Union funding type, which is conditionally repayable, depending on whether certain project goals are reached or not. Péter Fazakas, agri-analyst of Takarékbank revealed that there is still unused potential in the Hungarian food industry, which must seek to produce at a higher level of the value chain.

János József Kiss, innovation and industrial law protection engineer of Glósz and Co. Financial Consultancy introduced how innovation management can be used to make innovation work cheaper. Péter Koósa, managing director of Detki Keksz Kft. talked about their use of funding from 7 grant programmes to invest more than HUF 5 billion in modernisation, e.g. the company doubled its baking capacity. Géza Tóth, CEO of Co-op Hungary Zrt. – this year’s winner of the Retail Award of Excellence for Hungarian Products – spoke about the steps they are taking to keep the company competitive, for instance he revealed that one year from now there will be solar panels on already 100 Coop stores.

Andrea Földvári, senior consultant of GfK gave a presentation about how important sustainability and environmental protection are for consumers. Eszter Benedek, managing director of Magyar Termék Nonprofit Kft. introduced their two new trademarks, Product of Excellence and ECOlogical Product. Zoltán Vass, director of business development at reNEW Technologies broke the news that Hungarian experts had developed the word’s first recycled cleaning product, Cycle, which is already available in Hungarian dm stores.

The programme ended with a discussion about how consumer and product safety issues can be harmonised with ecological and business expectations. Attila Kecskeméti, sales and marketing manager of Magyar Piszke Papír opined that starting to use new packaging material wouldn’t solve problems in the long term. Dr Gyula Kasza, head of department at the National Food Chain Safety Office (NÉBIH) called attention to the importance of informing and educating shoppers about sustainability. Gabriella Heiszler, managing director of SPAR Magyarország reckons that retailers can only reduce the quantity of packaging material used if they keep food safety issues in mind to the maximum. Árpád Mutsy, managing director of Bio-Fungi warned that more food waste is generated by buying unpacked vegetables and fruits. //