UK food producers, and the packaging companies which supply them, could benefit from growing consumer concern for quality rather than price, predicts a newly-formed trade association.
David Tyson, chief executive of the Packaging and Films Association (PAFA), says: "As consumers, we've been educated by retailers to be extremely price-conscious, more so than the rest of Europe. But there may be a change to that. Consumers are already asking: 'It's cheap, but is it good for me?'"
His comments come in the wake of suggested links between the spread of avian flu and the movement of poultry between Bernard Matthews' plants in Hungary and the UK.
PAFA is the result of a merger between the Packaging and Industrial Films Association (PIFA) and the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA). The new association was set up in the same quarter that saw the announced move overseas of about 60% of the UK's gravure film printing capacity.