Roundtable

Our food industry carries increasing responsibility to develop and implement sustainable solutions considering global challenges such as climate change, resource shortage and a growing world population. In our network, we take advantage of the opportunity to jointly develop effective strategies and approaches and use synergies. Through the regular exchange of best practices in the form of our ‘Sustainability’ roundtable, our companies learn from each other and can implement sustainable solutions more quickly, e.g. in the development and use of alternative proteins, sustainable procurement, packaging or energy use.

The subject of food law is complex and multi-layered. Legal provisions change over time.

Each year, two roundtables are offered exclusively for our members in proven cooperation with the law firm ZENK in Hamburg, where topics relevant to the companies are discussed and legal assessments are made.

Practical legal tips:

Our members receive practical legal tips for internal implementation and can also exchange ideas with other companies.

Topics include:

• ECJ rulings/misleading information
• Packaging design
• Health claims
• Food Information Regulation (LMIV)
• Allergen labelling
• Origin labelling

The key to future viability and innovation

In the dynamic and highly competitive food industry, qualified employees and competent managers are key success factors. Human resources and personnel development are becoming increasingly important to secure skilled workers, promote talent and create a modern, resilient corporate culture. Good leadership is a relevant lever for motivation, retention and innovative strength.

This is where we come in to tackle the challenge together. The human resources managers of our food companies regularly exchange ideas on current challenges in our cluster, including labour law issues and modern leadership topics.

Our HR roundtable has created the talent pool which we use to successfully help secure skilled workers for our companies and the region. Tailored recommendations from our network for our network enable targeted and successful matching between applicants and our companies.

We also offer leadership workshops.

As a cluster, we are actively committed to supporting our companies in personnel development and leadership issues – with practical formats, networks and innovative solutions that specifically address the needs of the industry.

We approach the topic of quality management with foresight and keep up with the latest developments, promptly informing our members about changing requirements.

This includes current requirements in various certifications, such as IFS, and their impact on the company and implementation options. Specifically, this can include topics such as allergen management, food safety culture and pest control.

This roundtable is the source of our diverse training courses, which we offer in collaboration with experienced experts.

Food consumption and nutrition are and will remain an important social and economic issue, as it is closely linked to emotional needs. In addition, there is a growing demand for health and sustainability. Transparency, naturalness and origin are also topics that shape the food industry and should be communicated authentically, especially via social media: micro-influencers instead of testimonials, real-time video content instead of classic TV commercials. There are numerous opportunities, especially in the food sector.

We are picking up on these and other trends and are delighted to have various marketing experts sharing their knowledge with us.

Logistics is a highly significant competitive factor in the food industry.

This makes it more important for those responsible for logistics in our companies to exchange information and knowledge in a spirit of trust. This involves current challenges such as freight costs and capacities, sustainability in logistics, benchmarking of logistics costs, logistics platforms and much more.

Our companies also enjoy visiting each other’s production facilities and warehouses on a regular basis.

The purchasing roundtable began with the topic of packaging. Among other things, the latest packaging options were discussed, as well as the corresponding internal implementation and application possibilities within the company.

Practical examples from areas such as film, cardboard and corrugated cardboard, particularly in the context of sustainability, are relevant topics that the responsible employees from the companies discuss.

Issues relating to production are dealt with by the respective production and/or operations managers.

A visit to the companies is very informative and helpful from a technical point of view. This makes it possible to illustrate many things even better and, for example, energy issues and topics or measures for climate neutrality to become even more tangible.