What are your roles and responsibilities at Glanbia Nutritionals?
My responsibilities include the management of the whole process of business, which involves business development, marketing strategy, profit and loss, and distributor management. I’m also engaged in direct selling, where I assist our customers in buying the products that best suit their needs. Rather than focusing on our entire portfolio, my recommendations help them save time and ensure quick and long-term rewards. Being strategic and mindful is essential in my area of work because sometimes, the easiest wins might not be the right wins.
What are the major challenges impacting the industry?
Cost cutting, a byproduct of COVID-19, is the major pain point that has impacted the industry. The food business was adversely affected by the pandemic, and gave rise to a series of difficulties. Our product deliveries were severely affected as the import slowed down due to issues in transporting goods into the country. In addition, obtaining containers to transport the products has been particularly challenging. In one instance, we had to wait for carrier ships to arrive in California so that we could unload the containers and load them again to send them to Australia. Products that typically took eight weeks were taking around eight months, which led to the customers overstocking the products and, consequently, our sales decreased. Fortunately, the market is now slowly getting back to normal.
I’ve learned that understanding your customers and providing them with what they need is the most important thing. Your product might be great, but if that’s not what your customer needs, the quality becomes irrelevant
How do you envision the future of the food industry?
There are different segments that I work on, and each of them is going to have a different future. Infant formula is a product that we sell, and it started as a very ambitious project as we saw immense potential in it. However, geopolitical issues strained the relationship with China and resulted in a decrease in sales of these products as they were the largest consumers of these products. Other factors, such as the low birth rate and the Chinese government encouraging the purchase of domestic products, added to this issue as well. The sales of the product improved marginally after the pandemic, but a staggering growth in the market doesn’t seem achievable.
Another category of products that continues to improve is beverages. We always try to bring differences in them without compromising quality. We have health drinks that have bioactive ingredients in them. These products are gathering acceptance in the mainstream market, and we are expecting great results in the future. This goes for all health beverages and aged care drinks. The pandemic and the growing vegan and vegetarian population have vastly improved its market growth. We also have products targeted toward women to improve their health. The market of nutrition and health products is undoubtedly going to flourish.
How does Glanbia stay ahead of the game?
We function differently, and the immense knowledge that Glanbia possesses about the food industry aids it. We own the biggest sports nutrition brand, Optimum Nutrition. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we restrict them to buying only from us. We are the largest whey protein isolate manufacturer in North America, and our product is of the highest quality. It has excellent nutritional attributes and is sold to our clients as well as other brands. We employ a cross-flow filtration method that produces high-purity protein while retaining the important sub-products that ion exchange removes, like glycomacropeptides with beneficial biological characteristics. This is one strategy that we follow to keep ourselves ahead of the game.
What is your piece of advice for the professionals in the food industry?
From over two decades of experience, I’ve learned that understanding your customers and providing them with what they need is the most important thing. Your product might be great, but if that’s not what your customer needs, the quality becomes irrelevant.
It is equally crucial to understand the impact of in-person interaction with the client. COVID has made us comfortable with virtual interactions. However, it is always better to talk to your customers in person to reinforce their belief in your company, and that will open many opportunities for you.
