Trends facing farmers and the food industry

The keynote address at this year’s Scotia Horticultural Congress was entitled ‘If you ate today, thank a consumer. Wait, what?’

Sylvain Charlebois, dean of the Dalhousie University faculty of management, told producers gathered in Greenwich that they should recognize that consumers in the marketplace have a lot of power. I figure most of them knew that already.

But Charlebois has a great handle on the food supply chain and the latest trends. He touched on ‘ketchup wars,’ Tim Hortons losing social capital, Sears’ bankruptcy and Amazon’s damaging effect on the grocery business continent wide.

French’s, you might remember, beat the ketchup competition in popular opinion when Heinz closed its Ontario facilities down. A Maryland-based corporation that purchased French’s last year has vowed to stay in Canada.

Tim Hortons had protestors outside many locations after wages went up recently in Ontario and workers were penalized, but outsiders weren’t surprised. The penalties might be best blamed on the firm’s Brazilian owner, 3G Capital.

Charlebois did not get into Sears’ dinosaur retailing story and worker mistreatment, but spoke about the new Amazon Go store that opened Jan. 22 in Seattle without cash registers. You get the app, grab the groceries you want and walk out because the store has 1.4 million sensors and charges you.

Amazon, he said, understands consumers before they do themselves. We are shifting our eating habits. Due to a lack of time and imagination, Charlebois said, “we don’t cook as much as we used to.”

Canadian families will be spending more money eating in restaurants this year, he said. According to Charlebois, we watch hours of cooking shows on TV and buy enough cookbooks to break sales records, yet the sales of cooking utensils are going down.

Most of us, he noted, depend on an average of five recipes.

The ordinary home can be expected to spend almost 30 per cent of its food budget in food service, the highest level in history. Fresh meal kits are gaining in popularity. Convenience is driving everything when 41 per cent of us eat lunch at our desks.

Charlebois is involved with Canada’s Food Price Report, which forecasts food prices for the upcoming year and analyzes trends in Canada’s food industries.

The annual food expenditure for a family of four is expected to rise by $348 to a whopping total of $11,948.

The price of vegetables is due to rise by four to six per cent and he pointed out that’s good news for horticultural producers. He can’t see anything negative in the sector. In fact, jobs are increasing in Nova Scotia.

Charlebois was out in feedlot country in Alberta recently and he spoke about the notion we might soon have to pay a sin tax for environmentally detrimental foods like beef. A recent report by a well-funded group called Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return Initiative (FAIRR) argues that a tax on meat is inevitable. After all, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported that livestock account for about 14.5 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2016, the World Health Organization linked processed meat consumption to cancer. There are consumer groups, particularly among the millennial generation, who view industrial livestock production as unethical. Charlebois commented that ethical concerns around meat have been gaining traction for about a decade.

Food fraud was the last trend Charlebois touched on.

“If you’re selling an organic product, and it isn’t, or you’re selling a product that is local, and it’s not; those are the kind of food fraud cases we’re seeing,” he said.

I’d be mad if I purchased salmon sold by a retailer as wild when it was actually farmed. If someone with celiac disease bought processed food marked gluten free and it wasn’t, that could cause suffering. Charlebois called for a whistle blowing system to be put in place.

Fascinating talk. Interesting trends and continued change can be expected in the foods we eat.