The food industry is evolving fast and how food is presented and marketed in supermarkets is important, according to Emeritus Professor David Hughes.

Professor Hughes was a keynote speaker at the MSD Future of Sustainable Livestock conference in Laois on Thursday.

“Think about it, people don’t buy lumps of flesh”, he said. The professor described how companies now have to present an offering like a meal or an easy to cook option that has an eco score on the label.

“The eco score might not be there on all packaging yet but it's coming," he said. He gave the example of Bangladesh, a highly populated country in south Asia, that has 175m people living at or below sea level – saying climate change and the effects of climate change are important to these people.

On trade, he highlighted the power of China and used the example of Australian wine into China that almost disappeared overnight when the source of COVID-19 was questioned by Australia. Within weeks, a billion dollar industry was reduced to a trickle.

Trust

Prof Hughes believes having farmers in the brand bring ‘trust’ to a product and there are examples globally where farmer branded milk and beef do very well. He did however highlight that co-ops are sometimes slow to invest in brand building.

He called out New Zealand, and Fonterra in particular, suggesting they under-invested in brands and instead preferred to be scale players of commodities. He did say that ship has turned around now and they have changed how they operate.

Hughes was one speaker in a long list of speakers highlighting changes in the industry. The keynote speaker from MSD was Geert Vertenten, Global Technical Director with MSD Animal Health, who described the mode of action and development journey for MSD’s new vaccine to protect against Cryptosporidium parvum vaccine Bovilis Cryptium – the first EU-licensed vaccine for protecting young calves.