World Perspectives

Problem Off the Farm

COVID revealed the raw underbelly of the U.S. food manufacturing industry. While politicians are blaming consolidation and greed for the disrupted supply chain and skyrocketing food inflation, the industry’s problems are far more complex than the sound bites produced in Washington. In sum, food manufacturing is too labor intensive and unproductive relative to overall manufacturing in the U.S. Notably, U.S. food manufacturing was considered the envy of the world in the 1970’s. A major U.S. export at the time was used food processing equipment as manufacturers fought to stay ahead of one another in productivity. Spin forward to today and part of the reason for a labor shortage is not just the pandemic but a failure to automate as...

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From WPI Consulting

Accountability and a comprehensive approach to export programming

WPI’s team helped construct a strategic approach to develop, implement, and track promotional activities in 8 key regions across the globe for an agricultural export association. With continued progress measurement and strategic advisory services from WPI, the association has seen its ROI from investments in promotional programming increase by 44 percent over the past 5 years. Not only does this type of holistic approach to organizational strategy provide measurable results to track and analyze, it fosters top-down and bottom-up organizational accountability.

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