Having attended more trade conferences than I care to remember, one thing is certain: most speakers will confirm that change is on the way, and may have already arrived.

While most tend to give little away as far as their own businesses are concerned, the exercise usually creates interest. If for no other reason it confirms the delegates’ own views, and perhaps creates a degree of smug satisfaction because they are already well along the same path. Progress in the industry is further highlighted by the now well-established and supported awards ceremony.

So the Re:fresh event certainly lived up to expectations. Apart from the razzmatazz, the Fresh Produce Consortium, which co-organises with FPJ, has also built a solid reputation for looking after trade interests where its efforts have saved members inconvenience and even money by keeping a close eye on the world stage. The evidence from the platform that it also has the ear of government by the presence of the minister is also highly commendable.

But while the most recent gathering provided food for thought, it also continued to point the way as to how the FPC may continue to best serve the industry. Past history has shown trade associations also need to constantly look at ways to meet members’ needs.

Some ideas on paper often have an immediate attraction, such as the suggestion last week that FPC might be the catalyst to create a fuel purchasing consortium to reduce distribution costs. Such plans however, while they may be well meaning, often eventually prove to be too complicated and/or expensive to administer.

A suggestion years ago to establish a debt insurance cover for its members when the industry was being riven by a surge in bankruptcies, put to the National Federation of Fruit and Potato Trades, one of the FPC’s predecessors, floundered because of these very reasons.

But there is no reason why other possibilities, which are less complicated, couldn’t be successful. In particular, last week delegates bemoaned the fact that there is little information available over potential crop gluts and shortfalls, although the wholesale markets themselves are the very sources where the information is available.

It was these conduits which the late Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Information Bureau used when it provided just such a weekly reporting service for both trade and media.

Individually few markets, if any, off their own bat provide any such details or even monitor broad price indications.

Now, with the likelihood that market BDMs will spread beyond London, it is a role which with the help of the FPC, they could collectively consider developing.

Such a market service after all is of value to growers and could help encourage them to return to the fold.