There are many challenges in the food industry, where from a manufacturer’s standpoint can be overwhelming. But resilience is among the key characteristics of industry players, enabling them to survive the highly competitive landscape. Take for instance the story of Dairy Home, which through persistence, beat the odds to become the first sustainable and organic milk producer in Thailand. Read their story on page 10.  

One of the industry's challenges is to improve nutrition security. Many companies have been successful in producing ingredients to address this concern. And we are happy to share that the winners of The Ringier Technology Innovation Awards in the Ingredients category are in this league.

Also related to this, HarvestPlus reports that nutritional deficiencies remain high in Asia. HarvestPlus is well known in the area of biofortification through their CGIAR HarvestPlus Program. Ravinder Grover, HarvestPlus Program Lead for the Commercialisation of Biofortified Crops Program and Peter Goldstein, Head of Strategic Communications in HarvestPlus, gave us an overview of the nutrition situation in Asia and an update on their programme.

We also have a report on the opportunities for manufacturers in the ready-to-drink (RTD) functional teas category, as shared by Sarah Lim, Marketing Director, Asia Pacific Beverages, Human Nutrition, ADM.  It's clear that indulgent and functional have to go hand-in-hand. 

In August, Ringier also hosted the ASEAN Food & Beverage – Automation and Packaging conference where Mettler Toledo, SACMI, DASE-Sing, Siemens, TeamViewer, and the Indonesian Food & Beverage Association were invited to share their insights. Go to page for the 43.