Ms. Sutharat Wirachapan, Global HR Recruitment Manager from Yoshinoya Holdings C., ltd., delivered a special lecture titled “Food Tech With & After Covid-19” for MBA04 students on Sep. 22nd, 2020.
The current global outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted people’s health, life, industrial activity, and food industry worldwide. While the unprecedented crisis continues, the global food tech community has become more actively talking about “What we should learn from this situation” and “What action should we take?” This seminar explored Coronavirus’s current situation, food issues that are seen clearer from the crisis, how it changes the food business, and what we should attend in the food area after this pandemic.
The presentation consisted of three sections: 1) the general effect of COVID-19, 2) the change in the food business with & after COVID-19, and 3) five new emerging businesses. In the first section, using a variety of data, she explained the effect of COVID-19 from various perspectives (Delivery service, online grocery sale, lay off, food deserts, and so on). MBA students understood how serious the effect is. Especially, the effect on the food industry is very severe. COVID-19 has changed the food industry significantly. In the second section, she talked about the food industry’s damage and introduced some countermeasures and mitigation strategies to these damages. Many companies were forced to more or less change the business style. On the other hand, COVID-19 brings not only damages but also new business opportunities. In the last part, she showed us five areas that should be paid attention to after Coronavirus: Food as medicine; Home cooking for Reconnect & Relax; Plant-based meat blooming; Food waste solution; Frontline solution.
At the end of the lecture, students had time for group discussion and group presentation about food issues caused by COVID-19 outbreak in Viet Nam and what they can have learned to implement in Viet Nam food industry. Students actively participated in, vigorously discussed and shared a lot about food issues and what they want to apply for after the special seminar.
