Fresh Summit 2012: Back to the Future

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The year 2022 is going to be an interesting time, according to panelists at the State of the Industry presentation yesterday.

PMA President and CEO Bryan Silberman mixed things up and instead of delivering a solo State of the Industry address, he brought in a team of industry experts to talk about what will be happening in the year 2022.

Silberman weighed in on the next decade, along with Vernon Crowder, Rabobank,  senior vice president and agricultural economist; Elliot Grant, YottaMark, Inc., Founder; Leslie Sarasin, president & CEO, Food Marketing Institute; and Victor Smith, president & CEO Fresh Innovations.

Panelists fully entered 2022 and described what they saw. Here are some highlights.

Silbermann:

• We will have far more women in leadership roles.
• We will no longer about transactions, but about relationships.
• Change will become business as usual.

Sarasin:

• We will return to the values of the mom and pop stores.
• Bargain hunters will use their mobile devices to find deals.
• There will be smaller store formats, catering to surrounding neighborhoods.

Crowder:

• *Half the population will live in cities.
• We will have improved technology and farm policy.
• Natural resources will be tight. 

Smith:

• We will change the food culture so that fresh produce will be the primary item on the menu.
• Children will be the healthy eaters and will tell their parents to eat their veggies.
• Food will be safer.

Grant:

• There will be more robots! (Emphasis and punctuation mine.) The robots will help with production on farm, meeting the need for labor.
• All packaging will be recyclable.

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*Correction: Half the world's population already lives in cities