Why do food, beverage and consumer goods organisations subscribe to the FT?

From inflationary pressures to export bans, the depth of the FT’s macro-level reporting ensures professionals in the industry remain up to date. Subscribers within the industry tell us that the FT's accurate insights on business, supply chains, manufacturing, technology and markets, help them to make better and more informed business decisions. Read on to find out how.

Increasingly, professionals from all sectors need not only depth, but also a broad sense of world events to pair with their expert knowledge in order to be effective in identifying business risks or opportunities. In any organisation or industry, different job functions require access to a wide range of relevant news, analysis and specific insights.

For instance, supply chain teams will need to keep informed on the potential knock-on consequences of macro stories on their supply chains, whereas market analysts may be more focused on data and commodity prices. FT reporting delivered through a group subscription helps to equip every level of an organisation with both the intelligence that is central to particular roles, as well as enabling teams to go beyond their own areas of expertise and form more well-rounded views.

The world's largest food & beverage company Nestlé provides its supply chain teams with access to FT.com. This helps them to see the ‘big picture’ and enhance their understanding of global events. With a better grasp of the world beyond their local regions, the FT offers a global context that can be applied at a local level.

Will Mackereth is the supply chain director for Nestlé Vietnam Ltd. “I want my team to have a breadth of interests,” he explains. “It helps them to start to see the correlations between what’s going on in the big wide world and the impact it has on prices locally.”

FT readers like Will, who are immersed in the day-to-day of the food and beverage world, often highlight the importance of accessing a wide breadth of content. An FT Group Subscription provides a means of understanding events across industries and maintaining a competitive edge.

Through tools such as myFT, subscribers can manage and filter news topics most important to them, and have key content directly available through email alerts and a daily digest newsletter.

An FT Group Subscription offers organisations access to reporting from over 700 global journalists and 40 different email briefings, as well as tools to surface, save and share content more easily. Below is a selection of FT journalists, email briefings and tools that consumer goods professionals tell us they find particularly valuable.

Martin Wolf is the FT's chief economics commentator and is highly regarded around the world. His reporting provides readers with an understanding of current economic news stories and insights into the impact of trends across industries and regions.

Martin’s ability to connect stories across finance, markets, and politics provides good examples of how events in one place can influence many others. For instance, Martin has recently detailed how ​​the War in Ukraine is a huge issue for human welfare as well as for the world economy. As the unfolding story of destabilised financial markets and disrupted supply chains continues to gather pace, FT readers stay informed views on potential risks, which they can then look to mitigate.

Judith Evans is the FT’s consumer industries correspondent covering food & beverages, and home and personal care products, as well as companies such as Nestlé, Unilever and AB InBev, along with the UK agriculture sector.

Her reporting directly covers the news and events taking place in the food, beverage and consumer goods industry. From the dangers of accelerating inflation to curbing a nutrition and obesity crisis, readers stay aware of emerging trends, opportunities and risks in their industry and can form strategies on how to handle them. Aside from Judith’s reporting, she regularly appears on the FT’s News Briefing podcast where listeners hear a rundown of the most important global business stories for the coming day, directly from the FT’s newsroom.

Peggy Hollinger is the FT’s international business editor reporting on topics such as global trade, business regulations, shipping and trade disputes. In her 30 years at the FT she has also written for Lex and covered the retail, oil and gas, and utilities sectors.

Peggy’s international reporting helps business readers in the consumer goods industry access global journalism at scale and make discoveries and connections between topics.

Gillian Tett is the chair of the editorial board and US editor-at-large at the FT. She is the founder of the award-winning Moral Money email briefing that discusses news and analysis about the fast-expanding world of socially responsible business, sustainable finance, impact investing, environmental, social and governance (ESG) trends, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Gillian is also known for identifying aspects that led to the 2007 financial crisis.

Whether Gillian is reporting on the mindset shift in the supply chain crises or the impact of war on markets, readers in the consumer goods industry gain an insight into important global issues.

An FT Group Subscription offers access to over 40 different email briefings, curated by FT editors.

• Lex is arguably the world's most influential column of its kind. Lex editors such as Head of Lex ​​Jonathan Guthrie and Deputy editor Elaine Moore, publish award-winning stories across four time zones. This financial newsletter is valuable to professionals in corporate finance and strategy, including those at board level. Premium subscribers can sign up here.

• Due Diligence is edited by the FT's corporate finance and deals editors, Arash Massoudi and James Fontanella-Khan. Due Diligence is a must-read briefing on global corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, and private equity. Premium subscribers can sign up here.

• Moral Money is the trusted destination for news and analysis about the fast-expanding world of socially responsible business, sustainable finance, impact investing, environmental, and social and governance (ESG) trends. Premium subscribers can sign up here.
  

• Europe Express discusses the most consequential topics in European politics and policy, offering smart, punchy insight and analysis. For consumer goods readers, this provides news into the new driving the European agenda and impacts on trade and business in Europe. Premium subscribers can sign up here.

• Britain after Brexit is a newsletter guiding readers through the UK’s adjustment to life outside the European Union. By keeping up to date with the latest post-Brexit developments, consumer goods professionals can gauge how Brexit is impacting supply chains, regulation and manufacturing. Premium subscribers can sign up here.

The FT provides tools and features to help readers find, interrogate and share the right stories, at the moments they need to. Below are some useful FT tools and integrations available to subscribers.

• Markets data and the latest commodities prices allow subscribers access to updated market movements and information. Tools include market event alerts, watchlists, a funds overview and access to a data archive.

• Visual and data journalism provides a deeper insight into stories and helps readers navigate through sometimes complex issues. A recent data visualisation piece examined how the War in Ukraine is having a direct impact on consumer goods and increasing food supply insecurity. Hear what the FT’s chief data reporter, John Burn-Murdoch says about the importance of readers accessing charts and data in the video below.

• Gift articles allow subscribers to share up to 20 articles per month with non-subscribers. Each shared article can be opened a maximum of three times and is useful for one to one sharing with colleagues or clients.

• Enterprise Sharing links can be opened 100 times or more enabling wider article distribution than gift article links. This sharing option is perfect for sharing FT articles on social media, in email newsletters and across internal collaboration platforms.

• FT Microsoft Teams App is a free integration that brings award-winning FT journalism and content into workflows. It embeds the myFT digest directly into Teams and users are able to easily get up-to-date headlines throughout the day on their chosen myFT topics without having to leave the platform.

Help your team make better business decisions with the FT’s trusted commentary and analysis. For more information about how the Financial Times can help your organisation or to request a free trial, please get in touch.