Ian Salusbury investigates the prospects
for the food and beverage industry.
You can’t open a newspaper these days without reading about soaring food prices and global shortages. What impact are these changes going to have on the food and drink industry, and how is this increasingly globalised industry going to be affected by issues such as the growing demand for biofuels and concerns about an obesity ‘epidemic’?
Staple foods such as wheat, rice and maize (or corn) have taken their place alongside other commodities, like oil and metals, in experiencing dramatic price increases over the past year. Speculation by financial traders accounts for some of these price rises but they are also due to a range of other factors, including crop failures brought about by global climate changes, increased demand as the world’s population continues to grow and the diversion of food crops to biofuels.
Additionally, more people now live in urban areas than in rural ones. This shift is accompanied by a westernisation of diets: the consumption of convenience foods, meat, fish and dairy products increases and fewer vegetables and staples like rice are eaten.
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