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Introduction
This is the latest newsletter from Hamilton Grant Software. The newsletter is distributed at the end of each month to our contacts in the food industry around the world. It contains details of updates to our software and information to illustrate to both our customers and the wider user community how they can continually increase the use of our software to satisfy the demands of this ‘data-hungry’ industry.
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The transport boom
The availability of relatively cheap oil over the past decade has acted as a boost to the transport industry in many areas of business. In the same way that we have welcomed the chance to explore new horizons with budget airlines, we have embraced the opportunities to buy food from all over the world from our local supermarket. Strawberries were once a delightful summer experience – along with tennis at Wimbledon, eagerly anticipated in June and fondly remembered in September. Now we can eat them all year round, sourced from summers around the world.
The new reality
With the relentless increase in the price of oil over the last year a new reality is taking shape. Whatever happens to the oil price in the future – whether it reaches the $200 a barrel predicted by some industry pessimists or not – it’s clear that the days of cheap oil are over. Airlines are announcing cuts in routes and plans to ground airlines this winter, and motorists – even in the US – are, for the first time ever, reducing the number of car journeys they are making.
The upside
But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. Such liberal and seemingly boundless use of our oil resource is neither green nor sustainable, and the reality shock had to hit us sooner or later. There are always alternative ways of conducting our lives – necessity is the mother of invention – and there is no doubt that new (or old perhaps) and better ways will materialize. Already a French company "Compagnie de Transport Maritime a la Voile" is shipping wine from France to Ireland by wind-powered sailing ship, and a major UK retailer is making renewed use of the Manchester ship canal to supply goods to its City depot.
Retailer strategies
Farmers Weekly (www.fwi.co.uk) is running a “Local Food is Miles Better” campaign in the UK and invited the major retailers to make a clear statement of their position on local food and environmental sustainability. The retailers responded positively and described a number of new food delivery schemes that are expected to save several million food miles over the coming years.
The opportunity
One retailer has set up an initiative with the aim of increasing by 50% its number of small UK suppliers. The scheme, entitled “Supply Something New” gives local producers that have not previously worked with them the opportunity to become a supplier.
Local companies supplying retailers for the first time will need to have systems in place to ensure quality, traceability, and availability of comprehensive technical data about their products. Hamilton Grant’s system for product development and technical data management is designed to play a central part in this – a way of demonstrating to retailers that essential data management systems are in place.
We invite local producers who want to capitalise on these new opportunities to contact us to discuss the essential software elements that will help them satisfy the ‘due diligence’ requirements of the retailers.
Contact Sales
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