KANSAS CITY, MO — Panel after panel during the American Society of Baking (ASB)’s virtual BakingTECH2021 — otherwise known as the “Best Week in Baking,” has offered concrete examples of how the industry is accomplishing more than many ever thought possible. Looking back over past year, there have been numerous examples of how the industry has innovated in responding to pressing issues through the use of communication, leadership, technology and innovation.
During BakingTECH, Enrique Andaluz of Microsoft shared a vision of bringing the food ecosystem into an intelligent collaborative platform, one that can interact with any player.
Using the example of aluminum in the car industry, Andaluz highlighted the power of companies coming together to reinvent processes and create transformative business models. Potential for improvement is evident across the food supply chain beginning with the waste that occurs early on in the system.
For example, excess bread products could be used by brewers to enhance their products, and excess packaging materials could find a second use in textiles.
The impact distilled from ecosystem innovation in the areas of auto, food, consumer goods and farming could accelerate synergies when the ecosystem is enabled with the right approach, Andaluz said. By working together, these synergistic activities could deliver benefits that no single company could do on its own, making collaboration more important than ever.
“We need to begin sharing information and build trust across businesses to get things done.”
To begin, he encouraged looking at new constraints such as the lack of unlimited, free natural resources. The lack creates a different scenario than what we currently have and is something that will certainly test the ecosystem.
Rather than waiting for this to actually happen, Andaluz encouraged those in the food ecosystem to learn how to build a better ecosystem now, rather than ignoring the potential of its arrival in the near future.
“Changes in our world are happening quicker than the industry is changing,” Andaluz said. “We need to begin sharing information and build trust across businesses to get things done. Technology is the easiest part, but we need to work together on the big problems.”
