What is your role in Kerry Group?

My role in Kerry is to show a mirror to the business and ensure we’re creating innovative products that the consumer actually wants. It’s great to have brilliant ideas but we want to make sure those ideas are relevant. The consumer keeps us honest.

How fast are consumer trends changing in the food industry?

We’re at highest rate of change in history. I’ve been working in the food industry for 20 years and I’ve never experienced as many challenges as I have in the last two or three years. Consumer needs are changing faster than ever because of demographics, social changes, a faster pace of life and heightened consumer awareness.

What are the key changes in consumer trends that you see?

There are three things that I find fascinating when I look at the consumer. Firstly, older people are becoming very proactive and positive in how they want to be seen in society. At Kerry we know we need to understand different cohorts of consumers. It’s not just about millennials. Secondly, the pace of life is getting faster and faster. In the past, meals were predictable and structured three times a day. But there are no rules today and our lives are a lot more fluid. On average, we now have five or six different meals during the day. People are eating on the go and there’s a lot more snacking. And finally, there’s greater economic awareness among consumers, not only in terms of the money they spend but in terms of the value in a product.

What is driving these consumer changes?

There are four drivers behind these changing trends. The first is “freedom food”. Consumers are tired of hearing what’s bad for them and don’t know what to trust anymore. Consumers want to enjoy their food without any compromise to health, taste or the planet. Second is claims. Free from claims such as dairy-free, meat-free, non-GMO have multiplied over the last three years. The third driver is green label. You’ve heard of the term clean label but this is moving it on and seeing is your product green and sustainable. And the fourth driver is “living nutrition”. This is the increasing awareness among consumers about what’s good for their inner health. They want food that benefits their gut health and immunity, mental health and brain health. It’s personalised nutrition.

How does Kerry Group adapt to these changes?

In Kerry Group, we are positioning ourselves for the future. We spent six months in deep research last year identifying these key trends. This allows us to help our customers and ourselves to be future-ready. We need to be able to scale up production of artisan food products. We also need to move from authentic ingredients to authentic food processing technologies that have scale. And we need to ensure we have the trust of the consumer because there’s nowhere to hide if you don’t have trust.

Title: Director of market insights and consumer connect.

Company: Kerry Group.

Annual turnover: €6.4bn.

Forecast earnings growth 2018: 7% to 10%.