Technological innovation at the heart of IMF initiatives

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Sarasin noted that IMF has partnered with the National Junior Achievement organization to address the recruiting needs. / Photo courtesy: Timothy Inklebarger

FMI Food Industry Association president and chief executive officer Leslie Sarasin identified six imperative issues facing the food industry in her annual state of the industry address this week, noting that accelerating technology is the key to go on about all of them.

Sarasin based his comments on the report Imperative Issues 2022: Identifying Food Industry Challenges, which identifies six issues as: supply chain disruption; labor shortages and workforce challenges; changes in the market and social dynamics; evolving consumer behavior; rising ESG expectations; and accelerate technological transformation.

“[T]Technology will transform the food industry. It will overhaul our company’s financial structure, radically alter job requirements, eliminate layoffs in business practices and offer new forms of risk management, he said. And you’ll notice that the acceleration of technology is at the heart of all other imperative issues. It touches and affects all five other concerns.

Interviews and surveys with executives in the food retail, wholesale and CPG sectors revealed that labor shortages and workforce challenges top the list of concerns for industry players with 88%. This is followed by supply chain disruption at 85%.

Sarasin noted that IMF has partnered with the National Junior Achievement organization to address the recruiting needs. “Achievement has a proven track record of working with middle and high school students and introducing them to workforce opportunities, employment opportunities and career options,” she said.

IMF is also working to help members attract skilled workers by exploring nontraditional job options to expand the pool of workers, so they not only keep pace but also lead the rapid changes happening daily in our industry, she said.

On the topic of supply chain disruption, Sarasin noted that industry leaders are “often relegated to reacting to larger forces at work that are well beyond our control, such as inflation, input costs, labor policy, wages and e-commerce.

He said it’s time to redouble efforts to help create more efficiencies. Together we must seek broader solutions that restore balance to the supply chain, create more flexibility and agility in the system, and help future-proof the food supply chain if we are to restore consumer confidence in it, he said.

Evolving consumer behaviors and rising expectations around ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues rank much further down the list of issues, at 13% and 5% respectively. 63% of respondents said they were concerned about the rise in home dining, while 15% noted concerns about both improving omnichannel shopping experiences and meeting consumer demands for greater transparency.

Industry leaders are making dining at home “as convenient, simple and healthy as possible” and are aware of the broad notion of convenience held by consumers, she said.

“It embraces the food itself and how it’s prepared, but it also includes ease of pickup and ready access to information about the food,” Sarasin said. Consumer sensitivities to health and well-being are all part of the package of attention to evolving consumer values ​​and their understanding of convenience.

Sarasin said that technological innovation is central to all of IMF’s efforts and that the industry is in the early stages of what artificial intelligence and machine learning can achieve. In short, the technology will transform the food industry. It will overhaul our company’s financial structure, radically alter job requirements, eliminate layoffs in business practices and offer new forms of risk management, she said.

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