Welcome once again to all HCI members and I hope every one is fit and healthy, taking up the challenges presented to you all. For those that are a bit "off colour," well, we wish you all a speedy recovery.
The HCI board will have a teleconference within the next month and we will be grappling with that age-old problem of how we can communicate with all of our association members.
There are many advantages in being able to share information, particularly when we now have the numbers across the globe. Obviously there will be some confidentiality and language constrictions that we will have to work through, but I hope that in the not-too-distant future, we can really get this happening. While we are determining the optimum way of linking all of our websites, we would ask all members to contact the chairs in each country if you would like to make contact with any particular group to share information.
We as chairperson in each country can start the ball rolling by sending our newsletters, magazines, and other information to each other so that this can be put on the individual websites. Rebecca Reid from "Complete Nutrition" in the UK has already started this by inviting members of our association to log on to their website and download the magazine (www.nutrition2me.com), so please use this wonderful advantage.
From research going on worldwide, it seems that we may all be working past retirement if the figures are correct. This data suggests that in Australia by 2012 the amount of workers in the workforce aged 55+ will increase by 14% and demand for workers in the construction, foodservice, café, restaurant, and accommodation industries is expecting an 18% increase.
Although I’m only a "young fella" yet, it seems that the 55+ age group will be the productivity drivers for Australian businesses in the immediate future, and we can only presume that this may be the case worldwide.
How are your budgets coping as recent data points to the fact that basic food prices have risen well above inflation over the past five years? Potatoes and carrots have risen 32% and 28.7% a kilogram respectively. The average price of bananas outstripped them both – up 32.7% over the same five year period; the CPI over here rose 14%. Steak went up 25% and lamb loin up 35% over the same five year period.
Food price inflation is being fueled by the rising cost of feed (78%), water (72%), and other production costs (49%). Higher oil and energy costs are also pushing up processing, packaging, and distribution costs. It would seem that the growers are the ones being severely disadvantaged as their prices have not moved anywhere near this over the same five-year period.
All is not doom and gloom however, as we have become very inventive within the healthcare foodservice industry. Nevertheless, I think we have reached the limit of our creativity and we really need the buereacrats to understand this. This is where your sharing of information will become an invaluable tool.
I will sign off with an invitation to come join us at the HCI/IHHC conference down under on the Gold Coast in Australia in September and you can be assured of a warm welcome. Details are on the HCI website and we will be copying this to all of your association websites.
Looking forward to seeing you — and for those that cannot make it, please feel free to make contact and start to share the information.
Best Wishes
John Patison
HCI Chairperson