Looking for a way out in New York

Excessive production when 50 000 people die of starvation every day? Food safety when GM food is the most practical means of feeding the poor? Protectionism when globalisation should be the way to cooperate? Leading food retailers and manufacturers met at the the annual CIES conference held in New York between 17-19. June. CEO-s of the following companies spoke at the conference: Delhaize, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, L’Oréal, Nielsen, Pepsico, Sara Lee, Sealed Air, Supervalu, Sainsbury’s and Wal-Mart. Pierre-Olivier Beckers, chairman of CIES and Food Business and CEO of Delhaize spoke about the food market being in a much better condition that other sectors of the global conomy. According to Dr. Michael Mandelbaum, a professor from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, protectionsm is likely to become one of the the lasting effects of the crisis. In the opinion of Robert Watson, the world’s food requirement is expected to double in the next 20-50 years, while food safety is also to become more important than ever. It is impossible to tell yet if GM is the answer to these problems or not. Steven A. Burd., CEO of Safeway Inc. outlined the possibility of a market based health reform with compulsory insurance and an official rate charged for unhealthy forms of behaviour. Giants like Coca-Cola Enterprises, PepsiCo and Hershey support this idea. As it was pointed out by Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, simplicity is the way to reach consumers. Simple and transparent product info serves to enhance consumer confidence which means that uniform and objective standards for food labelling are needed. Jeff Nodle, CEO of Supervalu added that different labelling systems exist in the world which allows manufacturers to hide facts. Retailers however, do bear a responsibility towards their customers. The simplified and transparent structure used by her company to classify its products was called focused pragmatisation by Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Kraft. In the opinion of William V. Hickey, CEO of Sealed Air Corporation, the following is needed for a successful anti-starvation program: – modernisation of production; – developing processing and packaging; – development of retail. According to Antonio Coto, CEO of DIA Latin America, raising their prices should be the last resort for companies. Some false beliefs exist in the heads of leading executives which Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury tried to confute: consumers become more conscious in times of crisis instead of the opposite, consumers do not become more selfish and mid-price stores do not disappear.