The millenium is the PR industry's dream come true. Not only will people throughout the world celebrate (for exactly what reason is not clear) but thousands of events will generate sales and profits. Good causes will not altogether counterbalance the main motivator (greed) but hopefully mankind will be imbued with a renewed sense of hope, and some targets will be established in this engineered hype that deserve support. There is another benefit. Businesses are focusing on the year 2000 and pondering their position in under four years time. They should be doing this continuously of course, but those triple zeros have a magic that is making governments, corporations, multi-nationals, smaller businesses, retailers and all who earn a buck, study inevitable developments. These views are being clearly publicised and the debate is being fed by countless opinions and forecasts. Few conferences will not have the year 2000 spotlighted in some way. And so the Federation of Wholesale Distributors came to the subject this week. What emerged was a concensus that may be cliched (customers are important!) but it underscored the direction of change. The drive for efficiency has motivated wholesalers for 35 years. Easy words such as Partnership, Networking and Efficient Consumer Response are passing into business jargon but they should not be taken for new ideas. They are decidedly not. But they do give executives a feeling of comfort that comes from pretended inventiveness. What is new are the methods to hone these concepts and make them more applicable. Databases and analysis are at the heart of the changes that are leading us towards the year 2000 as the marketing men become more accurate and replace the drivers who rely on the seat of their pants-individuals who were interesting, slightly maverick, often mistaken but leaders of innovation. Fortunately the food industry retains an element of razor competition that engenders excitement, compensating for technological advances which have a tendency to bore.