Someone, obviously a man, once said, “Behind every great man there’s a great woman.” Well, behind, besides and often in front of the guys who deliver great work to our clients there’s a team of people who create and deliver the experience of being at Wolff Olins for us and our clients.
These guys don’t just make sure the coffee machines are full, the bins are empty and the computers run smoothly, they also put on great shows by the canal, deliver the most amazing workshops and cook up the most delicious food everyday. Yesterday one of this team, Gilbert Mills celebrated 20 years at Wolff Olins, working in our excellent kitchen and generally making Wolff Olins London a great place to be.
If you want to know what is going to shape the way we live more than any other factor – look no further than food. As food gets scarcer, prices go up, and players in the food chain start getting very rich very fast. More importantly, they will exercise enormous control over the resources that we all rely on – literally – for our survival.
Depending on how you count we all have spent progressively less of our disposable income on food (for the UK 30% in the 50s, 17% in the 80s, less than 10% today) and correspondingly more on housing (10% in the 80s, 20% today).Yet now bread, vegetables, eggs, cereals, milk, cheese are all rising in price faster than they have ever done before. So is fuel. Meanwhile real incomes are in decline.
My hunch is we’ll have to spend significantly more on food from now on. Because we simply won’t have a choice. The question is what’s going to give in return?
