Frozen food giant Iglo is confronting consumers with their responsibility in the collective effort to make the food chain more sustainable. “Efforts to protect the climate and increase sustainability also come at a price that cannot be borne in the long term by manufacturers alone”, the company states in a remarkable press release.
Tipping point has been reached
There seems to be no concrete reason for the remarkable statement. Rather, it seems that a tipping point has been reached, at which the increased cost of raw material can no longer be kept from the end consumer. General Manager Antje Schubert of Iglo Western Europe makes a clear statement: “Price adjustments are not only necessary, but also a requirement for fairness and appreciation”.
Schubert lists the various factors that cause the increased costs to reach an unsustainable level: mainly, the trend among consumers to look for products that are produced more sustainably, a production process that by definition almost always entails higher costs. On top of this, there are factors such as climate change, which affects the weather and leads to more frequent crop failures, and rapidly increasing energy and transportation costs.
Meat substitutes and fish
Iglo and its parent company Nomad Foods – run by Belgian CEO Stéfan Descheemaeker – also feel the pinch in the fisheries. Iglo is committing to offering fish almost exclusively sourced from responsibly managed fishing grounds, but even then, things are difficult. A specific example is the Alaska pollock fishery, a major supplier, where the combination of Covid-19 and two bad fishing seasons has hit hard.
Schubert also points to the cost of the many meat substitutes that are currently causing a furore. “The trend to reduce the consumption of meat and other animal products has reached the whole of society and is here to stay”, she says. Iglo is committed to continuing to follow that path but does mention, not too subtly, the “extreme cost development” in that segment.
Price negotiations on edge
Iglo does not make it explicit what exactly we can expect in the coming months and years – except that the fish fingers will inevitably become more expensive. It is a tough prologue to what will undoubtedly be tense price negotiations with the retailers who bring the company’s products to the end-user – and it is a wake-up call for all of us: sustainable and cheap are not synonymous.
