This report is a special supplement to the annual KPMG Agribusiness Agenda, which explores the changes the food and fibre sector is already seeing in consumer behaviours, the opportunities that inevitably arise from disruption, and how we now need to move on from traditional perspectives and act at pace to embrace the ‘now normal’ future ahead of us. It explores some of the shifts we have observed in the global food system in 2020 and considers what these may signal for the future.

Recommendations:

1. Rethink how international trade is executed to ensure that it is inclusive and focused on providing food resilience and security, so that communities do not believe that protectionism is the only appropriate course of action.
2. Explore opportunities to work collaboratively with other organisations to present new product options to consumers around the world, for instance New Zealand product boxes containing a variety of our food and fibre products ordered online and airfreighted direct to the consumer.
3. Review product innovation strategies to meet the needs of consumers that have less disposable income, have reconnected with home cooking and are spending less time on the go and more time working from home.
4. Participate in social impact partnerships of government, community and commercial organisations in an attempt to minimise the percentage of the population that become long term food-insecure as a result of the pandemic.
5. Assess the approach used to analyse risks facing an organisation in light of the pandemic, with a view to utilising more advanced dynamic risk assessment models that identify the interconnectedness of individual risks rather than considering each in isolation.