What good can come of Horsegate?

The new arrival

There was a rather strange new arrival at Boston’s Logan Airport this weekend – a giant red cow. It was shipped in from Switzerland by the owners of family-run Massachusetts bakery Swissbäkers, who are opening up a new bakery in Boston and will be adorning the new location with this bovine statue. The best bit is that they’re running a competition to name the animal – surely, in the wake of the horse meat scandal, this is a chance to have a bit of fun - you might opt for Red Beauty, or Red Stallion or even Skydancer? Although I have a feeling this might be lost on most Americans.

Perhaps not so much in Europe where controversy about Horsegate continues to grow… Just today Ikea pulled meatballs from its UK stores as a precautionary measure and Nestlé faced further questions about its involvement with the scandal. The food industry is firmly back in the spotlight and the whole situation raises a huge number of questions about supply chain management, food sourcing, and, most of all, about trust.

Whilst child labor scandals associated with fashion brands such as GAP or H&M have led to boycotts, the food industry is in an even more precarious position because of the nature of the consumer's relationship with food. It’s linked to survival, nourishment and, even, comfort; the fact that consumers have been duped about what exactly they're eating feels like a much bigger violation than finding out the truth about how their t.shirts are made. It’s not even the fact that we’re talking about horse meat, although admittedly for some this is a real sticking point, it’s really the fact that consumers feel they've been tricked by the brands they thought they could trust.

So how is this going to play out? What can the food industry do to win back consumer trust? To be honest, it’s a bit too soon to tell as we’ve yet to understand the full extent of the problem. At the very least, this should serve as a wake-up call to companies who are not taking steps to address responsible business practices across their supply chain. There are good examples of what can be done to inspire and support supply chain partners to take a more responsible approach to the way they do business, e.g. Walmart, who selects its suppliers based on whether or not they adhere to the same social and environmental standards, rather than purely on price, and who has opened up a dialogue to “learn, connect, inspire and drive sustainability through collaboration”; or GAP, which is helping its suppliers to improve their human resource capabilities to prevent problems, such as underage workers, becoming an issue in the first place. However, there is still a way to go and many more companies that need to act.

In the longer term, perhaps this controversy will prove enough of a disruption to accelerate a number of companies – not just the food industry – to think differently about the way they do business. In Corporate Citizenship’s report, Future Business – the four mega-trends that every company needs to prepare for, which was published today, there is clear evidence that the period of choice is over. By that, I mean that the era when businesses could decide whether or not to do business in a more sustainable way is coming to a close; in the future, and as we’re already starting to see today, rapid population growth, increasingly limited resources, emerging markets becoming more powerful, as well as changing consumer demands and increased scrutiny via social media, will force private companies to adapt or risk going bust. Wouldn’t it be easier to take action now? That would be a positive outcome from Horsegate.

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