It can be easy to lose sight of the miraculous nature of our industry, because we’re so close to it.
But think about vegetables. All those farms across the UK and around the world, planting and tending crops. Navigating the challenges of water, the weather, labour, the environment and food safety. Into the packhouse for grading, sorting and packing. The planes, boats, trains and lorries coming over land and sea. Customs. Distribution centres. Disaggregation. Onwards to stores in every town. From the back of store to the shelf. Through the checkout, into the home. Onto the chopping board, into the pan and onto the plate.
What was grown last week in Norfolk is in your mouth this week in Cardiff. Your fridges, cupboards and freezers have products built from ingredients from hundreds (maybe thousands) of fields and factories around the UK and the world. And most of the time, it just happens. No one thinks much about it.
It’s interesting. And even if most of us don’t begin to understand the whole of it, it is something we should be collectively proud of.
But maybe we should talk about it more? Maybe we should show our workings more?
Communicating to shoppers
That might mean talking as an industry. We often worry about the negatives of our food industry machine. Are products over-processed? Is the supply chain environmentally efficient? Is this ‘Big Food’?
But what about the positives? The effort invested, the teamwork, the employment, the economic contribution? And the small matter of feeding the country. As an industry, we’re more modest than, say, tech or finance. But what we do is important. Only when a pandemic or conflict situation arises does everyone notice.
It might mean talking more to shoppers. Even if as a supplier or retailer what we do is not wildly different from our competitors, explaining it can give helpful context for the price the shopper pays. If I appreciate that these raspberries were harvested by hand in Scotland four days ago and boxed fresh for me in Guildford today, then maybe I’ll be happier to pay a decent price.
Retailers have rightly pumped out messaging about how their produce is farmed. But perhaps they can talk more about what else is involved, including distribution and at the sharp end in store. It’s not just from a perspective of industry morale (although that is important), but to justify the price.
The challenges in our industry can feel relentless. We compete hard with each other, which is good for consumers. But we should remember that what we collectively achieve is miraculous. It is in all of our interests to tell the story of what we do, so that shoppers appreciate what they’re paying for.
Jeremy Garlick is a partner at Insight Traction
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