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Record Investment in Foodtech Boosted by Changing Consumer Preferences, Sustainability Initiatives

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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lightbulb, innovation

Investment in foodtech made significant leaps forward thanks to increasing consumer demand, digitization and innovation in certain food categories. According to a report recently released from Deloitte & Touche, LLP, the value of deals made in the sector from 2020 to 2021, jumped from $6 billion to $13.1 billion, respectively. Factors driving investment in the sector include continued growth in alternative and plant-based proteins, the establishment of tech-based platforms that improve supply chain logistics and consumer experiences, and technological innovation in general.

According to Heather Gates, audit & assurance private growth leader for Deloitte, the accelerated growth in foodtech innovation is parallel with advances in agtech. “Hydroponic farming, improved fertilizers and pesticides, and robotics AI are all enabling more sustainable, steady production of produce even in urban centers, which can help augment local distribution opportunities for foodtech platforms,” she stated in the report.

The expansion of food tech is also promoting more farm-to-table options to consumers, because it streamlines distribution and delivery. As interest on the part of consumers for healthier and more convenient options continues, companies will see an increased emphasis on innovation in foodtech that incorporates sustainability and waste reduction, nutritional considerations, environmental impact, more competition in making more foods available at an affordable cost, and continued emphasis on last-mile transportation.

Read the full report, “Road to Next”, on Deloitte’s website.

Food Safety in 2022: Sustainability, Supply Chain Issues, Consumer Preferences and Technology at the Forefront

By Maria Fontanazza
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The ongoing pandemic, food fraud, food insecurity, supply chain disruptions and shortages, maintaining and fostering a robust food safety culture, and foodborne illness outbreaks kept the food industry very busy last year. Looking ahead to 2022, these challenges will continue, but many food companies are becoming better at forecasting and course correcting. During a recent interview with Food Safety Tech, Waylon Sharp, vice president and chief operating officer at Bureau Veritas, discussed trends affecting food safety this year, along with how companies should respond to incoming challenges.

Waylon Sharp, Bureau Veritas
Waylon Sharp leads North American food and agriculture testing, inspection and certification operations at Bureau Veritas.

Food Safety Tech: What challenges did food companies face in 2021 and how can they apply their lessons learned in the new year?

Waylon Sharp: Supply chain disruptions were a big challenge for food companies in 2021, as much of the North American food system is reliant on production or raw materials from international locations. This theme will continue into 2022, as logistics become more costly and challenging from a labor perspective, food companies will naturally gravitate to exploring alternatives. This shift in supply will increase the need for verification of product quality and safety of new suppliers. In addition to, or alternatively, some producers may choose more local options to reduce delays and increase stability of supply.

FST: What are the key trends impacting food safety in 2022?

Sharp: This year we’ll see food safety impacted by sustainability, consumer preferences and health and wellness:

  • Sustainability: Connecting with a purpose will be a key driver for both attracting new customers and enticing top talent to join food organizations. All aspects are critical, including sourcing raw materials, the packaging used, and minimizing the CO2 footprint in production and logistics. Consequently, I suspect there will be bad actors that see the advantage of appearing to be responsible but not doing what they say. Services that hold these organizations accountable will likely continue to grow.
  • Consumer Preferences: Migration to hyper-local, community supporting businesses can be directly correlated to the COVID financial fallout. Buying local helps support the areas we reside in, and this trend will likely persist. The feel-good support should also result in fresher product with less supply chain challenges for consumers.
  • Health & Wellness: Sustainable, plant-based products are expanding in prevalence. Traditional meat alternatives witnessed an increase in volume and new entrants such as seafood alternatives also grew in consumer acceptance. I expect more to launch in 2022 to meet the rising demand for healthy and environmentally conscious alternatives.

FST: What technologies will play a role in helping food companies tackle their biggest hurdles this year?

Sharp: Technology will continue to play an important role in the industry this year. Additional automation and digital tools to manufacture, assess food quality and safety, and distribute food are all likely to grow. Staffing challenges will continue to impact those highly manual production environments and the more work that can be performed without human intervention will gain favor over labor-intensive functions. In addition, remote audits and inspections allow for an experienced individual to assess a situation without traveling and being present on-site to limit human contact.

Stephen Dombroski, QAD
FST Soapbox

The Drive to Sustainable Food Manufacturing Begins with Three Critical Factors

By Stephen Dombroski
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Stephen Dombroski, QAD

Sustainability, without question, is one of the hottest social and political topics today. It is as complex as it is simple. Sustainability gets discussed in almost every walk of life, but in the world of food manufacturing, there are few subjects more debated than this one. It is a contentious subject because in the manufacturing arena, it is not just a social or political issue, it is a financial issue—a big financial issue. Sustainability and related issues around it are critical factors and components that are now impacting the bottom lines of food manufacturers. The impact is seen in terms of both red and black.

In a low-margin business like food manufacturing, profits are at a premium and even a minor disruption can negatively impact those profits. Adapting to all the issues that are involved in and around sustainability is, without question, a disruption for manufacturers. At the same time, manufacturers can make positive impacts through smart operational decision-making, which is where sustainability has the greatest presence. When sustainability is discussed in regards to food and beverage manufacturing, a number of topics surface. Some topics are discussed individually and some are grouped together. Consumer preferences, new foods, and packaging are three such areas. At first glance, you might ask why they are lumped together. They are lumped together because they are actually very closely related. Let’s explore those connections especially as they relate to finances.

Consumer Preferences: Paving the Sustainable Path

Consumer preferences have always been one of the leading factors determining what food and beverage manufacturers produce and send to market. For generations, countless amounts of time and money have been spent on trying to predict what consumers want and when they want it. A tremendous amount of data is painstakingly analyzed by manufacturers trying to figure out the consumer’s next move.

According to a 2018 Global Web Index survey, half of digital consumers say environmental concerns influence their purchasing decisions. Millennials—sometimes named the Green Generation—and Generation Z lead the way. About 61% of millennials and 58% of Gen Z’ers say they would pay more for eco-friendly products. Green consumers want brands to embrace purpose and sustainability, and they want their purchases to contribute to the greater good, or at least, do no harm.

These preferences started among millennials and Gen Z’ers, but with the influence of social media, they have expanded to all age groups. This expansion has contributed greatly to a change in what consumers purchase and to what manufacturers produce. In recent years, consumers have changed their eating habits in terms of what they eat, how they eat and when they eat, and those changes have impacted both food service and retail food producers. They have largely centered on healthier foods, pure ingredients and products that promote an eco-friendly culture and a sustainable world. The changes have been felt up and down manufacturing organizations, but most importantly they are reflected in the bottom line.

The industry has been forced to introduce healthier products, with more ethically sourced ingredients and more transparent supply chains. Younger consumers, especially, often trace a brand’s sustainability record with QR codes or smart labels. They want to know where their food originates. They don’t just want to know in which state the potato used in their organic baked potato crisp was grown. They want to know the county, town, farm, field and names of the people who picked it so they can connect with them on Facebook to determine if they practice safe hygiene principles! If a product doesn’t fit the consumers’ predetermined sustainable criteria, they buy a product from another manufacturer. Talk about an impact to profits. The consumer focus on sustainability has increased competition and costs, forced organizational changes and made food manufacturers figure out what processes and systems need to be in place to ensure their decisions keep consumers happy and their profits on the right side of the ledger. These consumer actions and attitudes are now influencing the development of new food items as manufacturers realize consumers are not just taking notice but taking actions as well.

New Foods: Where’s the Beef? Not Here!

As consumers change their food preferences for health and sustainability reasons, food and beverage producers have the opportunity, responsibility and if they want to survive, the mandate to develop new food products built on a reputation for sustainability. Brands have been working on protein alternatives for some time, but not until Burger King and McDonald’s introduced plant-based burgers did plant-based protein go “viral” so to speak. Talk about “Where’s the beef?” In addition to meeting the needs of the drive for sustainable foods, food manufacturers are developing plant-based proteins and many new foods to support the healthier lifestyle movement. As consumers embrace Keto diets, veganism, vegetarianism and other new eating and living practices, tofu, soybeans, seeds, nuts, legumes and other vegetable-based products are now being routinely used as replacements for protein, carbohydrate-heavy flours and food foundation bases.

Ten years ago, if I said in 2021 we would be eating pizza with a crust made of cauliflower, what would the public reaction have been? People in Chicago would have thrown away their deep-dish pans. Food manufacturers now introduce new products on a weekly basis and it is having a tremendous impact on sales and bottom lines. These rapid introductions also impact other key areas of the organization including supply chain, product development cycle and manufacturing cost infrastructure.

Substituting vegetables for carbohydrate-rich grains, of course, costs money. It can increase material costs, manufacturing costs, warehousing costs and distribution costs, which combine to raise retail prices. Luckily, as we have illustrated, consumers are willing to pay more for products that they perceive as having a sustainable footprint. Utilizing products differently to respond to the push for sustainability is a smart tactic that can expand the value chain, open up new markets and drive sales for food and beverage manufacturers.

Packaging Sells Products and Sustainability

Sustainable packaging can mean many things. It can mean packaging made with 100% recycled or raw materials, packaging with a minimized carbon footprint due to a streamlined production process or supply chain, or packaging that is recycled or reused. There is also biodegradable packaging like containers made from cornstarch being used for takeout meals.

For generations, packaging has had a tremendous influence on what consumers buy. Human beings are visual creatures. They are drawn to things that have visual and physical characteristics that appeal to the senses. How many products in the marketplace are known for a certain shape or color configuration? Many times, these shapes or colors can only be created using certain glass, plastic or other materials that might not meet the sustainable criteria. This has caused problems for manufacturers as consumers still want those products but are conflicted if their sustainable beliefs are compromised. Adapting new eco-friendly materials while retaining generations of packaging history and nostalgia can increase costs. But, to keep their customers, manufacturers make these changes, absorb the extra costs and try to make up for lost profits in other ways.

Packaging, especially smart packaging, can also help fight the battle against food waste. Packaging companies are creating and producing intelligent packaging for food products that have built-in sensors and monitors to determine when a product will lose its nutritional value or spoil. Smart labels are being used in conjunction with new packaging materials to monitor external factors that can influence product freshness. Packaging can be a driving force to reaching the goal of sustainability.

Adapting to changing consumer preferences, demand for new foods and new packaging materials and designs is critical for manufacturers trying to reach sustainable goals. Consumer preferences drive what manufacturers produce. Consumer preferences drive the development of new foods that consumers think they need in order to live a healthier lifestyle. Packaging is the wrapper that keeps the new foods fresh and catches the consumer’s eye, which in turn drives sales and thus drives profits. These three critical areas can be the foundation of the sustainable movement and manufacturing’s response to it. Food producers must embrace the sustainable movement if they want to stay in business. To meet this challenge, manufacturers of packaging and food need to evaluate their processes and systems and implement the ones that can help them cost-effectively transition to becoming sustainable manufacturers.

Stephen Dombroski, QAD
FST Soapbox

8 Reasons Sustainability is Critical in Food and Beverage Manufacturing

By Stephen Dombroski
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Stephen Dombroski, QAD

Sustainability pushes a lot of our hot buttons—it’s a political issue, an economic concern, and a social conversation. Some people even see it as a moral matter. Sometimes it’s on the back burner, but then it blazes back into the headlines. Sustainability is, arguably, an industry unto itself, since the economic impact on companies trying to adhere to government guidelines or react to consumer preferences can be in the billions of dollars across a wide range of markets. Sustainability demands are hitting a variety of industries, not just food and beverage. For example, the move from the internal combustion engine to the electric vehicle can be called a “sustainability” issue.

Exclusive Series on Food Safety Tech:
The Eight Elements of Sustainability
1. Consumer preferences
2. Climate change
3. Food insecurity
4. Food waste
5. New foods
6. Packaging
7. Regenerative agriculture
8. Transportation and regulatory restrictions
In light of the many disruptors in the food and beverage industry and most recently, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, sustainability is now front-page news. This article will discuss eight reasons why sustainability is now one of the defining issues in food and beverage manufacturing. Future articles in this series will examine each issue in more detail.

Consumer Preferences

The green consumer wants brands to embrace purpose and sustainability, and they want their purchases to contribute to the greater good, or at least, do no harm. The demand started among millennials and Gen Zers, but with the influence of social media, it’s expanded to all demographics.

The industry has been forced to introduce healthier products, with more ethically-sourced ingredients and more transparent supply chains. Younger consumers, especially, often trace a brand’s sustainability record with QR codes or smart labels. They want to know from where their food originates.

These consumer actions and attitudes are now influencing the development of new food items and packaging designs as manufacturers realize consumers are taking notice.

Climate Change

Warming is causing the earth’s poles, permafrost and glaciers to melt and the oceans to rise. Average sea levels have swelled more than eight inches since 1880, with about three of those inches gained in the last 25 years. Here’s the impact on sustainability—when sea levels rise and warm, flooding can occur, causing coastal seawater contamination and erosion of valuable farmland. Higher air temperatures may also rule out the cultivation of some valuable crops (gasp, chocolate!).

Hotter temperatures can also cause insect body temperatures to rise; they need to eat more to survive and may live through the winter instead of dying off. A larger, more active insect population could threaten crops. And changes to water, soil and temperature could affect the complex ecosystems of the world’s farms, causing plant stress and increasing susceptibility to disease. The food manufacturing and farming industries are starting to investigate new ways of growing food in environments that can protect crops from these changes.

Food Insecurity

Food demand is expected to increase anywhere from 59% to 98% by 2050. Populations are growing and due to rising incomes, demand is ramping up for meat and other high-grade proteins. At the same time, climate change is putting pressure on natural and human resources, making it challenging to produce enough food to meet the world’s needs.

The world agrees that governments, manufacturers and consumers have a social responsibility for to do their part to combat world hunger. Consumers are becoming more aware of food security and the threat that climate change poses. People are attempting to eat sustainably with meals designed to have a lower environmental impact, and incorporating an awareness of plate portions and food waste.

World health organizations are also stepping up. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization, addressing hunger and promoting food security. The WFP works to help lift people out of hunger who cannot produce or obtain enough food for themselves, providing food assistance to an average of 91.4 million people in 83 countries each year. Food brands worldwide are offering support through donation programs, new product development to provide more nutrition with less and new sources of food.

Food Waste

Around one-third of the total food the world produces—around 1.3 billion tons—is wasted. It’s more than just the direct loss; food waste contributes heavily to climate change, making up around eight percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Food manufacturers are making significant efforts to reduce their food waste footprint. Is it possible to anticipate and plan for potential glitches in frozen food processing? Sustainable brands make contingency plans in advance so that food can be stored safely while a broken line is fixed, rather than let it go to waste. What should be done with raw materials left over after processing? Perhaps there are other creative uses for it—vegetable waste, for example, has been used for fertilizer.

Human behavior is a main contributor to climate change and the motivator for new sustainable practices. Over time, community attitudes can change habits, like encouraging commitments to composting or recycling. In certain communities, grocery stores and restaurants contribute leftover food to charities. Portion control at restaurants and in the home can make us healthier and also help to reduce food waste.

New Foods

In response to changing food preferences and the demand by consumers for healthier options, food and beverage companies have the opportunity to develop new foods and build a reputation for sustainability.

Brands have been working on protein alternatives, but one can argue that plant-based protein went mainstream when news broke in 2019 that both McDonald’s and Burger King were testing plant-based burgers. And with veganism and vegetarianism growing, tofu, seeds, nuts and beans are also showing up in kitchens more frequently, as are products made from them.

Did it surprise you the first time you heard about cauliflower pizza crust? Food manufacturers have been actively introducing new products like this, substituting vegetables for carbohydrate-rich grains. Product manufacturers have brought us new product options like zoodles made from squash as a substitute for spaghetti. Utilizing products differently is a sustainable tactic. In addition, it opens up new markets, expands the value chain and increases business opportunities for food and beverage manufacturers.

Packaging

Sustainability also involves sustainable or “eco-friendly” packaging. Packaging with a reduced environmental impact is becoming a consumer priority.

What is sustainable packaging? It can mean packaging made with 100% recycled or raw materials, packaging with a minimized carbon footprint due to a streamlined production process or supply chain, or packaging that is recycled or reused. There is also biodegradable packaging like containers made from cornstarch being used for takeout meals.

To help fight food waste, intelligent packaging for food can use indicators or sensors to monitor factors outside the packaging like temperature and humidity, or internal factors like freshness. Smart labels can tell an even more complete story about what sustainable practices have been used in packaging manufacturing or along the supply chain via a QR code or webpage.

Optimizing product density for transport is another sustainability technique. Minimizing packaging can reduce shipping weight and packaging waste to minimize an organization’s carbon footprint. An added benefit is that manufacturers can deliver more in less time thus improving customer service and keeping the supply chain moving.

Regenerative Agriculture

Sustainability may call for practices that maintain soil health, but regenerative agriculture goes further; it looks to reverse climate change. Regenerative techniques promote the need to restore soil health, rebalance water and carbon cycles, create new topsoil and grow food in a regenerative way—so nature has the boost it needs to sustain improvement. If the quantity of carbon in farm soils increases 0.4% each year, says the European “4 Per 1000” initiative, it could offset the 4.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions that humans pump into the atmosphere annually.

The regenerative food system market has drawn investors, wedding the benefits to both water and soil to economic incentives. Unhealthy soil requires more water to produce the same amount of food. Healthy soil resulting from regenerative agricultural practices holds more water and therefore requires less water to be added. Underground and hydroponic versions of regenerative agriculture are also emerging.

Transportation and Regulatory Restrictions

Sustainability is also dependent on transportation and the supply chain. Governments are evaluating current practices and implementing changes that can positively affect climate change.

The food and beverage industry is actively embracing other changes that affect sustainability. Electric trucks fit well with their distribution hub model, with clean, quiet, short run deliveries. Fuel usage during transportation is being considered from every angle. Local and regional food systems, where farmers and processors sell and distribute their food to consumers within a given area, use less fossil fuel for transportation because the distance from farm to consumer is shorter, and therefore reduce CO2 emissions.

These eight areas are the defining issues facing food and beverage manufacturers today in sustainability. Sustainability impacts all of us, everywhere, and food and beverage manufacturing is right in the middle of it. What this means to the manufacturing world is that they must prepare their processes, systems, infrastructure and mindset to evolve their business in tune to the evolving issue of sustainability.

Sudip Saha, Future Market Insights
FST Soapbox

Five Trends Defining the Food Industry Post-COVID

By Sudip Saha
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Sudip Saha, Future Market Insights

Food retailers and the entire food and beverage (F&B) industry are now operating very differently than they did some six months ago. The pandemic has brought immense shifts in supply chains, imposed new hazard controls, and—perhaps most importantly—turned consumer preferences upside down.

To accommodate these changes, food manufacturers, retailers, restaurants and others stepped up to innovate and secure the continuity of their services. But now, as many industries begin to drop the notion of ever going back to what once was, it’s time we started thinking about how many of the newly introduced processes will stick around for the long-term.

What will be the main trends defining the food industry as a whole post-COVID?

Adopted Habits Aren’t Going Anywhere

The pandemic brought radical changes to our everyday lives, and it’s clear that many of the newly adopted behaviors won’t disappear overnight. Consumers will continue to rely on grocery retailers to keep them both fed and healthy while expecting minimum disruptions and a high respect for safety regulations—both in terms of handling and the state of delivered products.

Take-home grocery sales grew by 17% between April and July, breaking the record for the fastest period of growth since 1994. Online grocery shopping also gained popularity while managing to engage entirely new demographics. Some 10% of baby boomers now say they would buy more groceries online once the pandemic is over—compared to 34% of Gen Xs and 40% of millennials.

Due to consumer hyper-awareness of safety and sanitation, the whole food industry will continue to be defined by safety practices. Sanitizing common surfaces like keyboards, door handles, tables and chairs regularly will remain the norm. Beyond “manual” rules such as the mandatory use of facemasks, requirements such as regular health checks could boost the adoption of technology across the industry—transforming not only customer-facing interactions but also the processes behind the curtain.

Technology as an Enabler

Every crisis sparks innovation, and the food industry has certainly proved this thesis. Technology has become the ultimate aide, enabling interactions that would otherwise be impossible. These include contactless ordering, payments and pickup—processes that are likely to stick around even beyond COVID-19.

At the same time, the pandemic accelerated the usage of innovations that previously struggled to become mainstream. This includes virtual tipping jars or mobile order-and-pay, such as the options introduced by fast-food giants including McDonald’s, Subway, KFC, and Burger King.

There’s an obvious appetite for F&B companies to further incorporate technology. For example, the Coca-Cola Company is rolling out a touchless fountain experience that can be used with a smartphone for contactless pouring. Heineken, on the other hand, turned to virtual tech to launch a new product—a cardboard topper for multipack beer that will eliminate plastic from millions of cans. With travel restrictions hindering the mobility of engineers, the company leveraged virtual technology to install the new machinery needed at its Manchester-based factory.

But it’s not just solitary innovations; the market has already seen new AI-based technologies that help food businesses better manage risk in their workforce. Food manufacturing, distribution and provision require many different touchpoints; by predicting, monitoring and testing the health and safety of the workers involved in these processes, companies can ensure they keep their operations running, even if another wave of COVID-19 hits. Solutions like these will be crucial when looking to add another layer of safety that goes beyond mandatory governmental regulations.

Food Safety Revamped

Even though COVID-19 is transmitted through airborne respiratory droplets, and the risk of contracting the virus through food is low, people around the world are concerned about the possibility. After all, 40% of people are more careful about washing unpackaged fruit and vegetables than before the pandemic.

The pandemic has already made societies rethink various established concepts, such as wet markets or the consumption of wild animals. The pandemic could, therefore, lead to changed behaviors, and newly imposed rules such as formalizing small and micro food enterprises, provisions for direct sales by farmers, leveraging technology to ensure safety, and investments in a more robust food infrastructure altogether.

Such changes could also irreversibly affect street food—a sector that is bound to feel the hit of COVID-19. Particularly in countries with diverse street food culture, one of the emerging trends will be the rise of gourmet street food brands that can provide both great taste and high hygiene standards.

Food Sustainability to the Forefront

2020 will be a year of reckoning for the world’s food systems. The pandemic exposed the flaws of the global food supply chain that continues to be highly centralized and operating on a just-in-time basis. This is why we have seen panic food runs, urgent supply shortages and high amounts of food waste as many businesses were shut down overnight. In developing countries, several agencies expect that a “hunger pandemic” and a doubling of people starving could happen unless serious action is taken.

As we rethink the underlying principles of the food industry such as safety and supply, other concepts such as transparency and visibility into product sourcing and manufacturing also come into the spotlight. Consumers across the globe are more likely to prioritize offerings that are healthy and locally sourced than they were before COVID-19.

Food produced with the overuse of chemicals in monoculture cropping systems and large-scale animal farming significantly impact the availability of natural resources and cause substantial greenhouse gas emissions. Added to that, practices like industrial animal farming that operate with large numbers of livestock in confined spaces are a breeding ground for viruses, and have been linked to prior outbreaks such as the outbreak of swine flu in 2009. They also enable the spread of antibiotic-resistant organisms due to the common overuse of antibiotics administered to prevent infections caused by cramped living conditions.

Consumers are increasingly aware of this: Nearly 25% of Americans are now eating more plant-based food. As we move forward, diverse food companies are likely to tap into this trend, resulting in great opportunities for plant-based, nutritious, local, and even healthy DIY meals and products. For example, an Australian food producer has recently announced the launch of a new proprietary product range that will offer the first vegan ready-to-drink protein shakes on the Australian market.

A New Way of Dining

The restaurant market has been one of the direct victims of the pandemic but has shown impressive elasticity in adapting to the new realities. Many businesses have introduced service extensions such as deliveries and take-outs, as well as pop-up grocery stores. Enjoying great popularity, some of these options will stick around far beyond the pandemic.

However, there’s a counterforce hindering significant expansion: The simple fact that many consumers discovered a new joy in cooking. A recent study notes that 54% of Americans are now cooking more than they were before the pandemic, with 35% saying that they “enjoy cooking more now than ever.” But at the same time, 33% of consumers say they’re getting more takeout than before the pandemic. This implies that the post-pandemic normal will likely see a shift toward eating at home more often, whether that means cooking or takeout and delivery.

Therefore, restaurants are likely to continue diversifying their services, experiment with food bundles and DIY meal kits, or even luxurious in-home chef visit experiences as an alternative to high-end restaurant dining.

The past crises have shown that economic uncertainty is directly linked to changes in demand for private-label and value brands. After the 2008 financial crisis, 60% of U.S. consumers were more interested in reasonably priced products with core features than in higher-priced, cutting-edge products. So while luxury dining is not completely disappearing, it could take on other aspects.

In Denmark, for example, a two-Michelin star restaurant is moving to serve burgers. In China, a country that many look to as the model for the post-COVID world, there has also been a clear push toward more affordable dining as well. Hot pot and barbecue venues have been thriving, particularly among customers in their 20s and 30s. Many fine dining restaurants, on the other hand, have started offering affordable lunch menus or have cut prices to correspond to the current value-conscious behaviors.

It’s clear that the future of food retail and the F&B industry will be significantly marked by the pandemic. Its prolonged nature will also cause the newly adopted habits to become further solidified—and many processes will adapt to match them. For example, while contactless deliveries were accelerated in the past months, businesses are working hard to make them as efficient as convenient as possible, making it unlikely that such investments would be erased overnight, once COVID-19 is no longer a threat.

Sasan Amini, Clear Labs

2020 Expectations: More Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Technology Advances in Food Safety Testing

By Maria Fontanazza
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Sasan Amini, Clear Labs

2018 and 2019 were the years of the “blockchain buzz”. As we enter the new decade, we can expect a stronger focus on how technology and data advances will generate more actionable use for the food industry. Food Safety Tech has highlighted many perspectives from subject matter experts in the industry, and 2020 will be no different. Our first Q&A of the year features Sasan Amini, CEO of Clear Labs, as he shares his thoughts on tech improvements and the continued rise consumer expectations for transparency.

Food Safety Tech: As we look to the year ahead, where do you see artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain advancing in the food industry?

Sasan Amini: AI, ML, and blockchain are making headway in the food industry through advances in supply chain management, food sorting and anomaly detection, and tracing the origin of foodborne outbreaks. On the regulatory side, FDA’s focus on its New Era of Smarter Food Safety will most likely catalyze the adoption of the above mentioned technologies. On the private side, a few of the companies leading the charge on these advancements are IBM and Google, working in partnership with food manufacturers and retailers across the world.

Along those same lines, another area that we expect to grow is the use of AI and ML in tandem with robotics—and the value of new troves of data that they collect, analyze and distribute. For example, robotics for the use of environmental monitoring of potential contaminants, sorting techniques and sterilization are valuable because they ensure that end products have been through thorough testing—and they give us even more information about the lifecycle of that food than ever before.

At the end of the day, data is only valuable when you can transform it into actionable insights in real-time with real-world applications, and we expect to see more and more of this type of data usage in the year ahead.

FST: Where do you think food safety testing technologies will stand out? What advancements can the industry expect?

Amini: In 2020, technology is going to begin to connect itself along the entire supply chain, bringing together disparate pieces and equipping supply chain professionals with action-oriented data. From testing advances that improve speed, accuracy and depth of information to modular software solutions to promote transparency, the food safety industry is finally finding its footing in a data-driven sea of technological and regulatory advances.

Right now, legacy testing solutions are limited in their ability to lead food safety and quality professionals to the source of problems, providing insights on tracking recurring issues, hence having a faster response time, and being able to anticipate problems before they occur based on a more data heavy and objective risk assessment tools. This leaves the industry in a reactive position for managing and controlling their pathogen problems.

Availability of higher resolution food safety technologies that provide deeper and more accurate information and puts them in context for food safety and quality professionals provides the food industry a unique opportunity to resolve the incidents in a timely fashion with higher rigour and confidence. This is very in-line with the “Smarter Tools and Approaches” that FDA described in their new approach to food safety.

FST: How are evolving consumer preferences changing how food companies must do business from a strategic as well as transparency perspective?

Amini: Consumers are continuing to get savvier about what’s in their food and where it comes from. Research suggests that about one in five U.S. adults believe they are food allergic, while only 1 in 20 are estimated to have physician-diagnosed food allergies. This discrepancy is important for food companies to consider when making decisions about transparency into their products. Although the research on food allergies continues to evolve, what’s important to note today is that consumers want to know the details. Radical transparency can be a differentiator in a competitive market, especially for consumers looking for answers to improve their health and nutrition.

Consumers are also increasingly interested in personalization, due in part to the rise in new digital health and testing companies looking to deliver on the promise of personalized nutrition and wellness. Again, more transparency will be key.

FST: Additional comments are welcome.

Amini: Looking ahead, we expect that smaller, multi-use, and hyper-efficient tools with reduced physical footprints will gain market share. NGS is a great example of this, as it allows any lab to gather millions of data points about a single sample without needing to run it multiple times. It moves beyond the binary yes-no response of traditional testing, and lets you get much more done, with far less. Such wealth of information not only increases the confidence about the result, but can also be mined to generate more actionable insights for interventions and root cause analysis.

This “multi-tool” will be driven by a combination of advanced software, robotics, and testing capabilities, creating a food safety system that is entirely connected, driven by data, and powerfully accurate.

Laura Nelson, Alchemy

Changing Consumer Preferences and Employee Compliance Training Driving Industry Evolution

By Maria Fontanazza
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Laura Nelson, Alchemy

The food industry is undergoing considerable change, especially as consumers become increasingly more vocal about their preferences and concerns, and as technology improvement and adoption plays a larger role in the conversation. In a recent Q&A with Food Safety Tech, Laura Dunn Nelson, vice president of food safety at Alchemy, shares her thoughts about current industry trends and how they are impacting food companies, where more help is needed, as well as ways in which companies can help advance food safety culture internally.

Food Safety Tech: The food industry is rapidly evolving. What are some of the trends you’re seeing and are these posing different challenges to food manufacturers?

Laura Dunn Nelson: The food industry is rapidly evolving in three key areas: Who produces our food, the variety of our food, and how consumers access our food.

As consumers continue to shift their food preferences toward an increase in healthy ingredients, locally sourced products, and clean labels, companies in turn continue to innovate and reformulate. Mergers and acquisitions continue as larger companies look to partner with niche companies that are focused on products marketed to the health-conscious consumer. Companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are expanding rapidly, reaching both vegans and meat eaters in the United States and expanding into international markets. Ever-changing consumer preferences create challenges for the industry to accelerate their research and development processes in order to remain competitive in the marketplace.

Changes in product formulas and increases in product lines create the need for new ingredient procurement, changes in production schedules, and new operating procedures. There has been a proliferation of start-up companies using CBD as an ingredient for food and beverages despite the lagging food safety regulations forcing some city and state regulators like New York City to create their own ban of CBD products. As the FDA explores future regulations, producers and consumers are left to determine the safety of these products.

Home delivery of food continues to be a hot trend as the market continues to grow for companies like UberEats, Grubhub, retailers and foodservice companies like Domino’s Pizza where you can Tweet your pizza order. The home delivery service area presents new considerations for food safety including monitoring appropriate product temperatures.

Finally, discussion around blockchain technology continues to gain prominence as companies work to develop transparency within their supply chain. For many companies, this will translate into a significant shift in technology adoption and a move away from disparate data sources and therefore an investment in not only the technology but in revising their procurement processes.

Laura Nelson, Alchemy
Laura Nelson is vice president of food safety at Alchemy and currently serves as the vice-chair of the Food Safety Culture Professional Development Group (PDG) for IAFP.

FST: What are the areas in which you feel companies need a bit more guidance?

Nelson: How we effectively train our employees to ensure learning and comprehension is paramount to our success in the future. IBM Institute for Business Value recently completed their study “The Enterprise Guide to Closing the Skills Gap,” and noted “120 million workers in the world’s biggest economies may need to be retrained as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in the workplace.” Reskilling will be the new norm as new technologies and automation of equipment disrupt the current state.

Deloitte noted that “reinventing the way people learn” was the number one trend in the 2019 Global Human Capital Trends Report. Many companies are focused almost exclusively on mandatory compliance training and conducting the training the same way they have for years. Typically, orientation food safety training is provided during the employee’s first week of work and annual refreshers are given every year. In the Global Food Safety Training Survey that Alchemy provides to the global industry with Campden BRI, we consistently find that 67% of responding QA managers report that employees do not follow their food safety programs, despite their food safety training. Unfortunately, the emphasis on food safety is often relegated to that one day a year of refresher training with little reinforcement the remaining 364 days of the year. The ‘noise’ of competing priorities of production and customer expectations often distracts employees from their food safety responsibilities.

Some companies still define training as classroom training when, in fact, employees are being trained each and every day by their supervisors and peers. Companies that put additional emphasis in not only their training but validation of training through observations of employees’ food safety behaviors achieve higher food safety compliance. The power of two-way conversations between the employee and the supervisor as a coach creates an environment of communication and trust.

Alchemy worked with independent researchers to determine the effect of active coaching with prescribed behavior feedback on the plant floor. The results were conclusive: every facility included in the study revealed a 38% improvement in aligned employee behaviors.

Ultimately, companies need to evaluate their current learning organization for effectiveness and focus on job competencies and their ongoing assessment of compliant employee behaviors.

FST: What maturity level are you seeing in the industry related to food safety culture and the related implementation of best practices?

Nelson: The food industry is still relatively new to the concept of a mature food safety culture, and even how to define that. The industry focus of this topic has largely been driven by efforts within the GFSI community, particularly with the publication of the position paper “A Culture of Food Safety.” Pioneers in food safety culture research, like Dr. Lone Jespersen, and emerging training assessment tools are working toward pushing these newer concepts to the mainstream of our industry.

As with many important constructs, the QA/QC team is typically tasked with introducing this concept to their organization, defining their company’s level of food safety culture maturity, and establishing a continuous improvement plan. This is a tough ask from individuals who typically have a technical education background with little experience in behavioral science. To address these challenges, there are a growing number of consultants, books, and resources to help define a company’s food safety culture maturity and establish improvement strategies.

To help frame the benefits of a mature culture, a recent publication by Lone Jespersen et al, “The Impact of Maturing Food Safety Culture and a Pathway to Economic Gain,” notes the value of a mature food safety culture in reducing the cost of poor quality and food safety risks. Research indicates that many companies are currently in mid-maturity of their food safety culture. Suggested best practices to help an organization mature their food safety culture include:

  1. Foster cross-company ownership of food safety.
  2. Move from compliance driven operations to risk reduction through continuous improvement.
  3. Improve engagement skills of technical staff.

The first step is an assessment to understand the company’s unique performance gaps, either through an internal review or an external assessment. Once the specific gaps are identified, companies can develop their food safety culture improvement plan and execute. It’s helpful to conduct a reassessment over time to ensure the established improvement strategies are successful.

The effort can be challenging but research confirms that a more mature food safety culture will deliver improved food safety performance of food safety behaviors, improved product quality, and a reduction in food safety risks.