As well as facing the global financial crisis with all other sectors, the food industry also has to contend with yo-yoing prices for basic goods and the rising awareness that we really are what we eat. All this makes running a manufacturer something of a balancing act, according to Mars GCC’s GM Ahmed Bayoumi.

* What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
* It’s navigating the different stakeholders and finding the common ground between the needs of your associates, your shareholders, your community, your distributors and your suppliers - finding that magical common ground where everyone is winning is a big responsibility.

For example, a lot of companies last year were aggressively raising their prices in the region and that was very legitimate because commodity prices were going through the roof and there were very unfavourable exchange rates between the dollar and the euro. The way we managed it was that we looked at the cost side of the equation and basically refused to raise our prices any further in the second half of 2008 and focused a lot more on realising efficiencies. We went to our suppliers and our customers and looked for efficiency initiatives and the net result is that everyone is winning.

* Given the changing attitudes towards food and the growing awareness here in the UAE of illnesses such as diabetes, have you had to change the way you do business?
* As a leading food manufacturer, we believe in being a responsible player in this arena. We think the whole area of health is a complex topic that has multi-faceted dimensions related to level of physical activity, type of diet and many other things.

Globally, Mars is working with the WHO along with other leading manufacturers to contribute positively to health, nutrition and human well-being. On that front, there are a number of areas we are working on. The first is information - we have many initiatives to communicate on our packs and in general what the nutritional content of our products is.

We also have initiatives like Al Haraka Baraka in the Middle East, which is an initiative to get children into the habit where physical activity becomes part of their daily routine.

In addition to that, we’re looking at the portionability of our products in the future and we’re imposing limits on who we advertise to. Mars, along with a number of other leading food manufacturers, is committed to not advertising to children below 12. You will not see our advertisements on MBC3 or on Cartoon Network because we believe that you don’t want to influence the young. You can infl-uence their parents to be happy to offer our products and be confident in their quality.
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* What is the best thing? about your job?
* The element of responsibility is very exciting in the sense that yes you have to uphold certain standards and you have to be a role model in certain areas but also the element of responsibility gives you the opportunity to stretch yourself and your team to achieve results you thought were not possible.

A good example of that is that everywhere around the world businesses are suffering, but we are growing in the high double digits.

That’s not a personal achievement, that’s a team achievement, but you can really enjoy it when you are in a leadership position and say, “Yes, the decisions we took last year and this year are leading to the fact that in spite of the recession we are growing in double digits in the GCC”.

* Why do you feel Mars GCC has continued to do well in the global financial crisis?
* I think to be fair there are definitely external factors that helped us. One was that the food market is a lot more stable than let’s say real estate or luxury goods.

Also, the pace of investment in the country helped us because over the last few years there were many more hypermarkets, supermarkets and petrol stations opened.

So when you have quality locations in which to sell your products, your products do even better. We don’t see this pace of investment really halting, there are still expansion plans for leading retailers like Carrefour and Lulu and they speak openly to us about that. And from our point of view, I think the biggest thing is continuing to focus on the basics.

We are about the consumer having a positive experience whenever they have one of our products and we rely on them buying many, many times a year so you want to make sure that every time there’s a consumption experience, it’s positive and leads to a repeat pur-chase.

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