When it comes to the world of food, the conversation never stops. Opportunity abounds when you have food bloggers, Instagrammers and tweeters continually boasting about their latest new product find, favorite recipe or four-star restaurant meal and that 24/7 conversation quickly fuels word of mouth about your company, your product or your brand.
But that non-stop chatter can also leave you vulnerable in ways you might not have expected. Along with the foodies excited to talk about the next big thing, there are activists and watchdogs waiting for you to stumble. You can be the hot new brand one day and the company that caused widespread food-borne illness the next. You may inspire passion among consumers and the endorsement of influencers one day and end up on Food Babe’s watch list the next.
Whether your company is a start-up, a fast-growing mid-size company or a well-established house of brands, you need to ask yourself -- and your team -- some serious questions: Are you making all of your product benefits known and understood? Are you reaching the influencers that will support your brand in good times and bad? Are you producing your products sustainably? Safely? Are the claims that you're making accurate and does the food label reflect that? Are the ingredients you're using being attacked by food activists? Most of all, do you have a Chief Nutrition Officer (CNO) who can help you navigate those questions and anticipate others?
I ON FOOD can act as your contract CNO by helping you make sure your entire company is aligned around your food and nutrition goals, messages and issues. By conducting vulnerability and opportunity assessments, creating cross-functional teams, aligning the organization on strategy and developing company-wide messaging and action plans, I ON FOOD can ensure your company is viewed as a leader in the food and nutrition world while insulating it from the critics.
But that non-stop chatter can also leave you vulnerable in ways you might not have expected. Along with the foodies excited to talk about the next big thing, there are activists and watchdogs waiting for you to stumble. You can be the hot new brand one day and the company that caused widespread food-borne illness the next. You may inspire passion among consumers and the endorsement of influencers one day and end up on Food Babe’s watch list the next.
Whether your company is a start-up, a fast-growing mid-size company or a well-established house of brands, you need to ask yourself -- and your team -- some serious questions: Are you making all of your product benefits known and understood? Are you reaching the influencers that will support your brand in good times and bad? Are you producing your products sustainably? Safely? Are the claims that you're making accurate and does the food label reflect that? Are the ingredients you're using being attacked by food activists? Most of all, do you have a Chief Nutrition Officer (CNO) who can help you navigate those questions and anticipate others?
I ON FOOD can act as your contract CNO by helping you make sure your entire company is aligned around your food and nutrition goals, messages and issues. By conducting vulnerability and opportunity assessments, creating cross-functional teams, aligning the organization on strategy and developing company-wide messaging and action plans, I ON FOOD can ensure your company is viewed as a leader in the food and nutrition world while insulating it from the critics.
Vulnerabilities & Opportunities AssessmentOne of the first steps in making sure your company is taking advantage of opportunities and insulating itself from the issues is a vulnerabilities and opportunities assessment. I ON FOOD will work with each of your teams and team leaders to identify team goals, past successes, previous issues and current concerns; review materials; analyze current and past media coverage; review nutritional claims, advertising and marketing plans and much more. The outcome is a full assessment of all areas of opportunity and major vulnerability along with recommended actions.
Message MappingAre you singing from the same song sheet? Dancing to the same rhythm? Whatever the metaphor, once you have your teams aligned on your goals and strategy, you need to make sure that you're all delivering the same messages. The messages may be slightly different, depending on the function, but they're all essentially telling a piece of the story your company has to tell. And the more that each function can effectively tell their piece of the story, the more compelling it becomes both internally and externally. Your CNO will help you craft that story.
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Cross-Functional AlignmentThe next step is to align the various functions in your organization against the same strategy. All too often your marketing, R&D, communications, regulatory affairs, sales teams and others aren't talking and, even when they are, they're not always speaking the same language. Having a Chief Nutrition Officer that understands the role that each function plays can knit these loose threads together and make sure you're aligned along the same goals and strategy. 
Action PlansOnce you've crafted your story, how are you going to tell it? And who are you going to tell it to? And who's going to share that story with others? Your CNO can work with your teams to create plans that will take advantage of the opportunities and insulate you against the vulnerabilities outlined in step 1, establish metrics for success and evaluate the plan against those metrics.
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