The panel of food industry heavyweights assembled to address "The War on Big Food," yet they shied away from the whole "war" notion.
Yes, consumers are increasingly veering away from processed food. Yes, food companies face rising skepticism on everything from genetically modified organisms to animal welfare, all of it amplified by the Internet.
But food technology is scientifically sound, the panel said. The industry just isn't getting its message across. "It's a failure of storytelling," Greg Page of Cargill Inc. said Friday at a half-day-long "food security summit" put on by the Economic Club of Minnesota.
"I think we need to think of this not as a war, but as a contest to be the trusted party."
Of course, that's a conundrum. As Page acknowledged, a Cargill director and former Cargill CEO like himself isn't going to be seen as a trusted messenger. Cargill, after all, is the epitome of "Big Food."
The Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant, celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, was a cosponsor Friday of the Economic Club's food security gathering at the Minneapolis Convention Center. A packed ballroom listened to top executives from Minnesota's nationally prominent food and agriculture industry.
General Mills, Hormel Foods, Buffalo Wild Wings, Land O'Lakes and fertilizer maker Mosaic were all represented, as was Ecolab, a big player in food industry sanitation.
Consumers these days are increasingly asking questions about the origins of their food. Simpler is increasingly seen as better.