Food safety audits of processors, producers to be made

Food safety is an absolute issue for retailers, Dr. Jill Hollingsworth, group vice president at the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) says, and pressure on retailers is pushing the retail sector to pressure suppliers for food safety standards as part of an FMI "total food safety management approach" that begins with the "food source" -- i.e., producers, processors, suppliers -- continues through employee training and store operations and ends with consumer education, she said.

As part of this total approach, food sources will need to have "good agricultural practices" and good management practices and will need to meet buyer specifications for food safety, she said, and there will need to be audits to make sure that agriculture and management practices are being met and buyer specifications are being satisfied.

Retailers being targeted to push issues back in chain to processors, producers

Food marketing requires retailers to manage a number of "bumps, turns and twists," according to Hollingsworth. Food retailers must respond to government policies and regulations that apply constant pressure, to activists who beat emotionalism and fears into irrational consumer decisions and to media reporting that goes from bad news to good news and back again, she told the annual executive conference of the United Egg Producers. Most of all, retailers must respond to consumers "who drive everything" in the retail sector and who are constantly changing those drives, she said. Retailers "are being used to push (issues) back in the food system," she said. They are "visible," she said, explaining how litigants and protestors are far more successful targeting retailers "than a distant farm and farmer."

Organic, ethnic food marketing significant

Hollingsworth then took the conference on a tour of retail trends. She began on the organic trend, noting that organic sales are the fastest growing in the store. She said organic egg sales are growing 28.5% per year and represent $70 million in sales. Hollingsworth said another fast-growing food trend is the ethnic trend, which accounts for 37% of retail sales. She said retailers also are becoming increasingly more responsible for marketing health and nutrition, especially given the attention on weight loss. Consumers are looking for foods that act like "medicines to make us healthy and well," she said.

Feedstuffs.com