Paths, roads and dead ends

With the level of production shrinking by 1 percent, the Hungarian food industry was able to increase export by 5 percent last year. At the same time, domestic sales decreased by 3 percent. Many are of the opinion that the Hungarian food industry, which keeps losing its prestigious brands, would have gone on a different path if privatisation had happened differently. Indeed, it is bad for us now that foreign capital flees the domestic food industry: in 2000 the proportion of foreign capital in our food industry was 63 percent – now it is down at 47. In parallel with this, we realised that Hungarian investors were unable to take their place.

There was a significant downturn in the tobacco and beer sectors and the milk sector’s decline was 4 percent. We do not know what could have happened without the world economic crisis, but apparently our troubles would only have been milder. After the parliamentary elections the Federation of Hungarian Food Industries (ÉFOSZ) compiled a list of issues, evaluations, recommendations and expectations to help the work of the new government in improving the competitiveness of our food industry. The organisation is convinced that consumers are willing to pay more in shops if this is the only way to get good quality, safe Hungarian food products.

ÉFOSZ expects the new government to revise the New Hungary Rural Development Programme and to support the food industry according to its importance. ÉFOSZ also finds it necessary to develop a ‘Hungarian Product Programme’, which would standardise the different criteria Hungarian food products must meet. Last but not least, we must also understand that retail policy cannot solely be based on price advantages: retailers and food processing companies need to come to a new type of compromise.