Food & Beverage Asia speaks with Michelle Lee, regional marketing leader of Greater Asia at IFF to understand how innovation can generate rewarding results for both producers and consumers.
To begin with, can you share with us how food prices have changed in the past year? More crucially, which sectors in the food and beverage industry (eg, grain, dairy) have been most severely affected by inflation?
Michelle Lee: Food inflation is elevated across the globe, while emerging markets historically face higher inflation than advanced markets due to higher economic growth, exchange rates, and food cost shares of household budgets. For example, pricing of high-value dairy proteins has been at a historic high1. Since 2018, the cost of dairy protein has more than doubled, increasing production costs for food manufacturers.
What are some ways for food producers themselves to stay ahead and above of volatile changes in food prices? How should producers toe the delicate line between maintaining profit and ensuring reasonable quality and prices for consumers?
Lee: Trend driven and sustainable innovation are important cornerstones to industry transformation. To stay ahead of the curve and to keep pace with revolving consumer needs. Panoptic, IFF’s trend-driven innovation capabilities, for example, is a tool that we developed to guide customers on their product and taste design process. Through the Panoptic framework, we work with external trend and foresight partners, enlist advanced analytics, and tap our own experts and proprietary research. This allows us to innovate and make strategic decisions confidently and creatively through a shared understanding of the most influential people-centric trends re-shaping the world.
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