DairyCo

DairyCo reports from the IDF Summit

Published 17 October 11

Members of the DairyCo team have been at the International Dairy Federation Summit in Parma this week.  Reporting back the team have made some interesting observations and comments.

Wednesday 19 October

The final day at IDF focused on Real achievements to a more sustainable dairy sector: the Global Dairy Agenda for Action

• The  Global Dairy Agenda for Action (GDAA) is an initiative among six international organisations including IDF which demonstrates the dairy sector's worldwide commitment to "making major reductions in GHG emissions".
• The GDAA was launched by the dairy sector in September 2009 and at this time a commitment was made to report progress bi-annually.  There is a 'Green Paper' which DairyCo contributes to which catalogues initiatives and case studies across the globe, illustrating the ongoing improvements throughout the dairy supply chain. Full details are at www.dairy-sustainability-initiative.org
• Two farmer contributions were received, one from David Homer, from Wiltshire and the other from Brian Medeiros, from California.  Given the geographical and cultural differences between the two speakers there was a remarkable agreement about what mattered to a sustainable business trying to reduce its carbon footprint.  Both put great store in the value of their people.  'The team makes the whole thing work' was the common message.
• Some good presentations followed from further down the supply chain including a project from Grignon in France, www.grignonenergiepositive.fr. This initiative is gathering data from farms on GHG emissions and then to working with those farms to tackle the hotspots identified.

Tuesday 18 October

Conveying the benefits of dairy to consumers. The Marketing Conference has showcased some new thinking in dairy marketing and suggested new ways for dairy to be top of mind for consumers. 

• Dr Adam Drewnovsky demonstrated, with an evidenced based approach, that the relationship between energy (calorific) density, nutrient density and affordable nutrient cost dairy has strong credentials compared to other food and drink.
• The sessions also included presentations and videos from the IDF/Dairy Innovation Magazine Awards which celebrate innovation around the globe.  You can see the video highlighting the entrants, finalists and winners at http://www.foodbev.com/article/the-winners-of-the-idf-dairy-innovation.

Monday 17 October

• Tong Li of China's Mengniu Dairy Group spoke about China's aspirations for increasing dairy consumption. In 1998 the per capita consumption of dairy was 7kg/head (versus a world average of 106) by 2010 this had grown to 29kg with a world average of 118kg.
• Benoit Rouyer of CNEIL France, demonstrated the extent of the consolidation of processing organisations and companies in Europe over the last 15 years. Of the top 40 milk processors in 1996, 24 of them were European.  Now, in 2011 mergers and acquisitions mean that the same 24 are accounted for in 15 companies.
• Speaker Jonathan Banks, an expert in Consumer Trends, showed  the extent of private label domination by the UK major retailers.  The UK is second only to Switzerland globally with 44% of retail sales across all categories being private label. Other countries are substantially lower.

Keep up with the latest developments
To find out more about what's going on at IDF, or look at some of the papers and reports, you can visit www.wds2011.com.  Or you can find the IDF on Facebook where there are also links to the latest Twitter feeds (@FIL_IDF).