World Confectionery Conference QandA session offers key event centrepiece
L-R Francesco Tramontin, Brett Beach (MIA) and Alex Assanvo, of the Ivory Coast and Ghana Cocoa Initiative
Momentum for this year’s World Confectionery Conference is progressing strongly, with one of the key features for our event, its QandA session, set to prove a focal point once again.
With exploring sustainability topics within industry being at the core of our show in Harrogate, Yorkshire, on 5 October, we’ve invited a broad cross-section of the sector to play their part in this notable segment of the show.
This year’s high profile line-up will include some of our core speaking contributors in the form of Cargill and Ferrero, alongside Cama packaging, Luker Chocolate and Plamil Foods, which should make for an entertaining, and thought-provoking discussion on some of the most pressing issues affecting our complete value chain of industry.
So if you’ve yet to register for the event, make the most of our final month of Early Bird rates (offering a discount of £30), which are available through contacting Chris Meer at [email protected] quoting Early Bird23, no later than 5 August to make sure you’re part of the show.
There will be a number of pressing issues for our QandA that remain very much in the limelight – including inflation that has hit the broader food and drink sector particularly hard in the past 18 months – with the UK especially impacted. This has seen near 40-year highs in prices for consumers, which has inevitably hit confectionery sales, particularly within premium market segments.
Linked to this, major increases in ingredients prices, including sugar have also caused significant issues in Europe, the US and other territories around the world, raising the cost of manufacturing confectionery ranges, which in turn is being passed on to consumers in higher retail prices.
Elsewhere within supply chains, cocoa farmers in West Africa remain under pressure with uncertain growing conditions, and high commodity and fertiliser prices also proving a troubling factor, as the region continues to battle in driving towards delivering a living income for agricultural workers in the sector, which remains of prime importance to the confectionery, particularly chocolate sector.
Environmental concerns have also pushed the development of eco-friendly packaging solutions, which is an especially welcome trend, yet it’s one that is posing challenges for machinery makers in pushing technical capabilities of equipment to handle a more flexible range of materials – which ultimately will benefit the industry and further its clear desire to operate to even higher sustainability standards.
Neill Barston, editor, Confectionery Production
- Keep in touch at [email protected] or via social media @confectionprod and for World Confectionery Conference updates, visit www.confectioneryconference.com
