Why affordable food remains so important
With rising levels of development and urbanisation in many countries, we are seeing a shift in demographics, with a wider middle-income band that has higher spending power – indeed, today’s DEEPER IN THE PYRAMID (DiP) consumers are tomorrow’s loyal purchasers. At the same time, we need to scale our partnerships to ensure that the poorest people are not left behind and unable to access good quality, safe, healthy food that gives the best start to their children.
Our role
This drives us to find creative, innovative responses to the unique challenges faced by this demographic. We work closely with our customers and our Food for Development team around:
- Product development: at the DiP product development centre, we help customers to develop affordable, nutritious recipes, identify suppliers and provide facilities for product testing.
- Insights into consumer needs: we share local and global consumer research, run innovation workshops and identify product concepts based on the latest intelligence around consumer needs and aspirations.
- Strong development partnerships: we support our customers to identify and understand nutritional gaps, negotiate funding alliances with non-governmental organisations and governments, and support project implementation and training.
- Sharing expertise: we draw on our experience to help our customers understand the complexities of market distribution, develop viable strategies and logistics, devise distribution solutions and create appropriate, effective merchandising material.
- Strengthening the value chain: through a network of Dairy Hubs, we offer training, education and practical support to help local farmers build a sustainable business.