Consumer Foods to Go

Soon EU regulation regarding packaging and packaging waste will become law. While we are likely to see amendments to the legislation, we believe it is good to start talking about the proposed regulation and its impact on food companies. We are not talking not only about more recycling, but also about the use of recycled content, for example in drink bottles.

Maria Castroviejo and Cyrille Filott quizzed RaboResearch analyst Regina Mestre on all the new targets that may become law, and what they mean for companies downstream in the food value chain.

Innovation is a constant in food retail. For this episode of Consumer Foods-to-Go, Maria Castroviejo and Cyrille Filott interview Sipke van der Werf, head of innovation at SPAR in the Netherlands. What is new in innovation in retail? What is a company like SPAR thinking about right now and with a five-year horizon? Obviously, growth and cost control are important, but sustainability also plays are very important role in the innovation strategy of SPAR.

The Private Label Manufacturing Association (PLMA) trade show in Amsterdam is the largest private label event in the world. As always, the Rabobank consumer foods team pays a visit. And, like last year, we asked companies in attendance for their views. Last year we spoke mostly about challenges in the supply chain. This year we talked about the gains in market share in private label. Because of inflation, times are tough for some consumers, who start buying more private label products.

We asked companies how they are faring – and unsurprisingly, most are selling more volumes. But we also asked about the future: What's in store for private label? At the end of the podcast we share our takeaways from two exciting days at the event. Spoiler alert: It is all about price, price, price!

Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach to improving farming practices. Many downstream food companies are talking about encouraging regenerative agriculture practices at the farm level. They do this for various reasons: to achieve emissions reduction goals, to provide better food in general, and to stay within planetary boundaries. In this podcast, Maria Castroviejo and Cyrille Filott interview Rabobank experts Elizabeth Lunik and Cindy van Rijswick on this topic. Listen to their discussion about definitions, targets, what regenerative agriculture is, and what it is not.

Launched in 2017, Nutri-Score is a front-of-pack label to indicate a food product's nutritional value. Quite a few food retailers and food companies have embraced Nutri-Score, but how consumers are responding to scores has remained unknown. In this podcast, Consumer Foods-to-Go interviews Elke Godden, a researcher who has explored this topic at the University of Antwerp. The key takeaway: Consumers are not all the same, and they interpret scores differently. Other attributes matter as well, like brand, price, and nutritional claims, among others.

Rabobank's Consumer Foods research team visited Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, one of the largest food shows in the world. It's always fantastic to walk the floor and see new trends and products with your own eyes, and this year was no different! In this episode, the team shares their insights from the event together with hosts Cyrille Filott and Maria Castroviejo.

2022 may not have been the year the foodservice industry hoped for, but the post-Covid recovery was still quite strong. 2023 will be a year of continued uncertainty. Commodity prices are declining, but are still higher than in 2021. Consumers were fairly resilient in 2022, but it is unclear how they will behave in 2023 as economies may struggle to show any growth. In this episode of Consumer Foods-to-Go Maria Castroviejo and Tom Bailey share their views on what might happen in 2023 in foodservice in Europe and the US.

Deflation of input costs is happening across the food sector, but the cost of labor is actually going to increase... by a lot. There are two main drivers behind this increase: 1) a catch-up effect related to high inflation in 2022 and 2) low unemployment. Maria Castroviejo and Cyrille Filott quiz Rabobank economist Elwin de Groot on what may happen in the labor market in 2023 and in the long term. They also discuss the implications of the tight labor market for downstream food companies.

It is the time of the year to look back at 2022 and look toward 2023. Maria and Cyrille gathered the entire team of Consumer Foods analysts at RaboResearch to discuss the learnings from the year for the sector. And what a year it was!

They also talk about next year. What should be on the corporate agenda? What will happen to sustainability? Anything new emerging? Find out in this episode of Consumer Foods to Go!

In terms of prices and price volatility, 2022 was an incredible year for agri commodities. The conflict in Ukraine, adverse weather conditions, and currencies impacted prices a lot. What will happen in 2023? Maria Castroviejo and Cyrille Filott quiz Head of Agri Commodity Markets Research Carlos Mera on what's in store for 2023. They talk about the main drivers for agri commodity pricing and go one level deeper by singling out the commodities that may see interesting price actions.