The Industry Was Not Ready

The coronavirus pandemic came has a huge surprise for many, but it really should not have. Public health experts have been sounding the alarm for years. Now that we have been living and working for more than a year in the pandemic, what have we learned and how do we best move forward? By Judi Lazaro, Global Director, Food Safety, AIB International To better understand the impacts of the resulting COVID-19 disease on the food industry and the outlook on what is next, we surveyed 325 food and beverage executives globally and interviewed an additional 16 about what COVID-19 has cost their companies and how they are preparing for the next pandemic. What we found is startling – 30% of food industry executives think we will see another pandemic in the next four years, while half say they still feel unprepared for the next pandemic. This demonstrates not only the importance of current COVID-19 protocols, but also the need to critically examine their pandemic preparedness plans for the future. Following, we will examine the food and beverage industry’s readiness for COVID-19, how COVID-19 impacted their companies and how they reacted. Finally, we will look at how food and beverage executives are planning for the future. The Food & Beverage Industry Was Not Prepared for COVID-19 The majority of companies (61%) say they were not adequately prepared for the current pandemic. While most had plans in place prior to COVID-19 (63%), a third of them said these plans did not adequately address COVID-19 and its effects. Thirty-eight percent said they did not have pandemic preparedness plans at all prior to the pandemic. You can read the rest of this article in the May-June Issue of European Baker & Biscuit magazine, which you can access by clicking here.