Customers challenge food marketers - are you listening?

The challenges will come at the 2nd Middle East Food Marketing Forum in Dubai (18-20 January 2004), a unique event focusing on the difficult and competitive regional food market.

Taking as its theme "Are You Listening To Your Customers," the forum will hear from the UAE Consumer Protection Society, part of a nascent but increasingly vocal regional consumer movement. New movements have recently started in both Bahrain and Oman.

Hassan Al Katheeri, the society's chairman, will be calling for tougher food labeling regulations and declarations on labels to indicate when food has been derived from genetically modified ingredients.

The issue of GM foods - sometimes dubbed "Frankenstein Foods" in Western tabloid media - has sparked fierce debates in Europe between politicians, scientists, ecologists and consumers.

Opposition to GM foods has led a US company involved in the business withdrawing from the European market.

In the UK, consumers have already won the day with some supermarket chains refusing to stock items containing GM ingredients, ahead of any government decisions.

Providing accurate and detailed information on food product labels is essential, says Mr Al Katheeri. "Giving consumers the right to know will help them select the type of products they wish to eat," he added.

Currently there are no requirements on food marketers to state on labels if a product contains GM ingredients.

Food marketers attending the forum will also be given a timely reminder of how changing food habits over the past three decades in the Arabian Gulf have impacted regional health and dietary problems.

Dr Abdulraham Obaid Musaiger, Head of the Arab Centre for Nutrition and Director of Nutritional Studies at the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research, will be outlining the lessons for food marketers in his talk "We Are What We Eat."

Several case studies of food market successes will be given at the forum but one will be of particular interest - Dubai Co-operative Society's Co-op Islami Halal meat products.

Already the Arabian Gulf's leading supplier of such products, the Co-op Islami branch is now to be targeted to the Western European market of over 18 million Muslims.

Co-op Islami's success story is to be followed by a crucial guide for food marketers seeking new horizons on the increasingly tight regulation of the food and agri-business in a talk entitled "Selling Into New Markets - Avoiding The Pitfalls."

The talk is to be given by Brian Smith, founding partner of Booth Smith Food Technology of the UK, who has worked extensively in the Middle East designing and building new food process plants and developing new food products.

One of the highlights of the forum will be a special session where delegates will be able to sample dozens of the most interesting and innovative food and drink products from around the world launched in the past year.

The "See, Smell, Touch And Taste" session is by special arrangement with the Mintel International Group of the UK. Their Global New Products Database reports on over 50,000 new food and beverage product launches every year.

The sampling session was a huge success at the 1st Middle East Food Marketing Forum - variously described by delegates as "eye-opening," "well timed," and "very helpful and practical."

The 2nd Middle East Food Marketing Forum will build on that success by offering:

• Latest market research on the Middle East food market
• Case studies on unconscious customer motivations and perceptions
• A guide to using packaging to influence customer decisions
• A one-day workshop on how to develop food export markets

"Food marketing requires the ability to respond to customer needs and desires in the food they buy; identifying and surveying market groups; and, above all, knowledge of the conditions and customs in the market," said forum director Chris Mullinger.

"The forum has been designed to offer just that and it is my belief that if a company is serious about making inroads in the regional food market, they cannot afford to miss this event."