Ciaran Fitzgerald likes his cold comfort. He has the heating off, the window open and a fan blowing on a crisp November morning. "I hate central heating, it is one of my pet hates," he says. He sits in shirt sleeves while others hang on to their overcoats. It keeps him awake, he says.
He does not mention tobacco in the first half hour of explaining what his organisation is about even though as director of the Food, Drink and Tobacco Federation he represents cigarette companies. He explains that the federation, part of the Irish Business Employers Confederation of Ireland (IBEC) and dating from the 1930s, was established to represent suppliers to the grocery trade. Tobacco interests are dealt with purely on industrial issues - the impact of excise duties, packaging regulations and the Groceries Order which prohibits below-cost selling.
"We have the nappy producers and the likes of Persil and Daz. In relation to the retail sector and that sector alone, we represent nonfood," he says. Mr Fitzgerald heads an organisation with 110 members including dairy, beef and drinks companies, and producers such as NestlΘ and Irish Biscuits, Greencore and IAWS. There are nine people working full time in the federation. "I believe in consensus," he says.
His worst bad habit, he believes, is his use of "strong language, but in a nice way" which he has picked up from the meat trade's blunt culture. "But there is a lot of humour in there as well," he adds. "There has to be enjoyment and humour in everything. That is not always possible, but it is something worth pursuing."
He describes his daily routine as servicing the members - keeping up with the EU agenda and management committees - and promoting the industry amid a recruitment shortage. "It is highly service oriented. At times we would send 200 or 300 faxes a day to companies," he says.
The long-term challenge is to develop a strategic view for a sector which has had to deal with the effects of the BSE crisis, the advent of genetically modified food ingredients and most recently the widespread presence of E.coli bacterium in minced beef.
He says beefburger manufacturers have spent significant amounts of money on testing procedures on burgers and for consumers there is a dilemma between safety and choice.
"We instruct the consumer to cook it for 20 minutes, and specifically not to consume the product if there is any pinkishness in the meat . . . If someone wants to derogate from that and make a choice, then they are free to do it." The effect of the latest step of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, the Agenda 2000 proposals, has still to be felt. He says a reduction in food prices should allow more scope for developing value-added products. For beef, market share needs to be increased in the EU. "Our market profile is not great in the sense that the majority of our prime beef is still going to third countries [outside the EU]."
In general, the advent of the euro will allow for greater EU market penetration. But the federation is lobbying for structural funds to be used to protect the food industry against any devaluations of sterling which is remaining outside the euro zone for the moment. Funds should be directed at "giving meaningful assistance to companies involved in developing the UK processed food market".
The food industry's future lies in pre-prepared cooked food or "meal solutions". "The housewife or househusband is not going to spend the three hours cutting up the cubes of beef. As an industry we are going to get more and more involved in pre-preparation."
The industry, he says, has to find ways of using the State's beef and milk surpluses in such pre-preparation. Next week the federation will host a seminar on The Impact of Globalisation on the Food and Drink Industry, which will examine whether the strategies of companies "are sustainable in a future environment that involves a combination of increasing retailer power and retail globalisation . . . combined with a market oriented, less subsidy-supported world market in food and agricultural products".
Mr Fitzgerald says the Irish interventionist strategy is one that has worked well and is far from a free market approach. "There is no point in pretending that there is a completely free market. The main thing to ensure is that the intervention is proper and discreet."
Originally from Raheny, Dublin, he attended O'Connells and St Paul's, Raheny, before briefly following in his father's footsteps by spending a year in the civil service. He failed to get enough points for dentistry and settled into studying economics in Trinity College when Keynesian theory was in vogue. He went on to get a masters from UCD and began a career which has never strayed from food and farming, spending three years in the Agricultural Institute, now Teagasc.
He joined IBEC's predecessor, the Confederation of Irish Industry, in 1984, becoming director of agribusiness in 1990 and taking up his present post in 1993. He argues that continued downward pressure on food prices is a British cultural legacy of providing food produce which is "cheap and cheerful". "I think the French view is probably the right one; to exploit that you need traceability and value added, and also you need a huge home market and a culture-based gourmet approach."
Nevertheless, the £10 billion food sector is "by far the biggest manufacturing industry in Ireland", he points out, with 43,000 people directly employed, accounting for 25 per cent of manufacturing jobs. Then there is food retailing, distribution, warehousing and the licensed pub trade, and the 120,000 farmers "whose livelihoods depend on the food industry".
"I think the food industry is being taken for granted to an extent. By the nature of the product and in a particular time when you have low inflation, we do not get the doubledigit growth in the food industry that would catch the headlines." One of his most cherished memories is being instrumental in having the Government draw up a suppliers' agreement with Tesco, following the British supermarket chain's take-over of Quinnsworth, ensuring that local supply bases would continue to function. He now wishes to extend that to other British retail groups such as Marks & Spencer, Boots, Iceland and Oddbins.
"There surely has to be consistency in development policy. All international investors should be encouraged to go down the same route, which is developing linkages with Irish suppliers." The federation is also pressing for an extension of the 11-year-old Restrictive Practices (Groceries) Order, introduced after a price war between Dunnes Stores and Tesco during the British group's first entry into the Irish market. The Competition Authority has recommended that the Government rescind the order but Mr Fitzgerald paraphrases a former Taoiseach, Mr Garret FitzGerald, saying that it works in practice, if not in theory. The order prohibits below-cost selling, boycotting and the use of "hello money". It is being examined by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment's Competition and Mergers Review Group.
"Our argument is that the only case against the order has been purely theoretical in that it does not suit economic orthodoxy," he says.
