Consumers are more aware than ever of their food’s origin, quality and health impacts, they demand more transparency and this scrutiny is a threat to the status quo while an opportunity for the companies which align themselves with customers.
Farm and fork used to be extremely close until the age of exploration, industrialisation and globalisation put miles between them, and they became almost separate worlds.
For the past decades the players in the Food and Agriculture sector were operating at a distance. Food companies were focusing downstream, developing the products and services required to expand market share, while Agricultural companies were focusing upstream, growing volumes, and developing ever efficient supply-chains.
This is not anymore the case. As in other industries, generational shifts, digitization, and concerns about the footprint of the food system on the environment are driving a transition that will have long lasting effect on the Food and Agriculture industry.
The convergence between farmer and consumer is changing the equilibrium of the past decades and now the farm needs to learn again how to speak with the fork (and vice versa).
And this time with a new language. A new understanding of the upstream and downstream requirements is needed for companies and leaders to strive in this evolving environment. Agriculture-based companies need to provide more visibility into their supply-chains and align their practices with consumers’ expectations. On the other hand, Food companies need to increase their transparency into their ingredients’ supply-chain to address growing demands from consumers and regulators.
This is where the convergence creates the opportunity.
An opportunity to improve existing businesses such as further disintermediating a fragmented supply-chain, creating more earning potential in an integrated network, and bringing more efficiencies;
An opportunity to develop new solutions, from using digital access to improve farmers livelihoods to end-to-end traceability to more personalized nutrition;
An opportunity to create new products, as we are seeing in the growing alternative protein sector, which exemplifies the ability of innovative Food companies to develop products in partnership with their upstream peers.
Enabling the convergence between the farmer and consumers will demand collaboration which, as we mentioned in one of our previous insights, is critical to address the challenge of developing the right solutions for a diverse, dynamic and complex Food and Agriculture sector.