Last week the Young Leaders Forum were finally able to hold their first face to face meeting since the group was launched in March 2020, having previously only met over Zoom.

The group met in London, where they were joined by Charles Banks, Co-Founder of thefoodpeople, who gave the group an insight into the world of food trends. Charles explained how they spot trends, validate them and how they create the strategic frameworks that make ‘sense of trends’ to apply to industry strategy.

Thefoodpeople (TFP) are a united team of trend spotters and innovators, a team of psychologists, chefs, marketeers, product developers, academics, flavourists, historians and anthropologists.  But more than that, TFP are ‘champions of change’ that bring their inherent experience, as well as an obsession for food and drink, natural curiosity, intuition and tenacity.

This is underpinned by their intent ‘shifting the future of food and drink, to shape a better future for all, by harnessing the power of trends’. They are here to Stimulate to Inform, Interpret to Impact & Enable to Grow

We would like to thank Charles for meeting with the group and for giving such an interesting presentation.

Interested in joining the Young Leaders Forum?

The BFFF are looking for passionate young individuals to join an established group of 15 like-minded members. The group holds six meetings a year, going forward, these will now be a mix of virtual and face-to-face meetings/site visits.

If you are interested in being part of this group, please contact Holly (hollyjones@bfff.co.uk) and Harry (harryhinks@bfff.co.uk) for more information.

Would you like to host a Young Leaders Forum meeting?

Would you like to invite the Young Leaders Forum to your site for a tour? Or would you be interested in giving a talk to the group? If you have any ideas of ways you can be involved with the YLF in 2022, please contact Holly (hollyjones@bfff.co.uk) and Harry (harryhinks@bfff.co.uk).

Foodpro

At the forefront of the UK’s frozen ready meal sector, Foodpro is part of the Browns Food Group, a family-run business that has consistently led the way in terms of industry innovation and service since its foundation over 30 years ago.

A continued heavy investment programme into their state-of-the-art ready meals facility in Wigan makes it one of the most advanced of its kind within the industry.

As part of this group capital investment project, Foodpro has recently completed further expansions to allow the current facilities to increase production capacity by 40%.

The company continues to respond to consumer demand by introducing new products inspired by current trends and this expansion has allowed Foodpro to further develop new innovative products into the ready meals sector.

FULLY LOADED FRIES – COMING SOON…

• UNBELIEVABLY CRISPY FRIES!!
• PURE FOOD SATISFACTION!!
• DELICIOUS TOPPINGS!!
• MAKE YOURS FULLY LOADED!!

EATING IN, IS THE NEW EATING OUT!

Another important new technology which has become common in cold storage facilities recently is wireless Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). RFID utilises scanned tags to provide tracking information such as product movement, time spent in transit and temperature fluctuation data. At the loading dock, RFID helps manage the flow of goods throughout the warehouse, while drastically reducing labour hours. RFID tags, when integrated with an existing warehouse management system (WMS), will indicate a product’s destination, such as cross-dock movement or in-house inventory location, vastly improving throughput speed at the receiving dock. Standard loading dock procedure has always involved cumbersome bills of lading or packing slips. By removing this human element from cold storage monitoring, RFID systems minimise errors and reduce the need to open the product container at all.

Outbound shipments benefit, too. RFID tags share a product’s location from source to its final destination, no matter the method of transportation. This smart supply chain boosts product visibility throughout the cold chain improving the management of perishable and temperature-dependent products, enabling suppliers to deliver a fresher, higher quality product for the consumer.

Download the full Essential Guide here