The Global Obesity Business Forum (GOBF)
Helping the Food Industry Fight Obesity
A premier forum bringing together food industry partners and world class experts and researchers to provide novel insights and solutions to the obesity crisis.

Forum Goals

• To help arrest and ultimately reverse the global obesity epidemic.
• To provide exclusive access to preeminent obesity experts and researchers.
• To arm our Forum Partners and Members with new strategies and practical solutions to profitably build their businesses while addressing obesity concerns.

Background

• Rates of obesity and diabetes are soaring and have reached epidemic proportions. Over 1.3 billion people in the world are overweight.
• The food and agribusiness industries are major players in shaping the dietary issues that affect obesity.
• The obesity crisis is challenging the way the food & beverage sector operates in all phases of its business (production, marketing, distribution, restaurants & supermarkets).
• Staying at the vanguard of obesity issues is imperative to the health and future growth of the food industry.

The Forum's Origin

An invitation-only conference, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Interdisciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC) in alliance with the Business School's Kenan Obesity Reduction Partnership (KORP) in 2005 in Chapel Hill, attracted senior executives from leading food industry companies such as Nestlé, McDonald's, PepsiCo and Kraft Foods. This “off the record” conference allowed industry executives and academics the opportunity to talk candidly about emerging trends and how the two groups might collaborate to help solve this major public health dilemma while improving profitability.

The Process

The Global Obesity Business Forum will institutionalize the interchange and dialogue that was initiated at the conference. Representatives from corporations in the foods & beverage, restaurant, grocery and agribusiness sectors can become members of the Global Obesity Business Forum.

• Forum directors will secure leading edge global obesity experts to present the latest groundbreaking obesity-related research affecting the food industry.
• Forum Partners will be actively engaged in determining the content of the Annual Summit.
• Obesity researchers and food industry representatives will be given a mechanism through which they can establish a common ongoing research agenda.

Expert Advice and Consultation

Forum speakers and researchers will be chosen among eminent scholars and industry experts from around the globe appropriate to each topic. Initial leading obesity experts enlisted as speakers for the fall 2007 Summit include: George Bray, Ben Cabellero, Walt Willett and Barry Popkin.

Topics

• These will be jointly identified by Forum Partners and Forum Leadership. Examples include:
• What's the next landmine after trans fats (e.g., HFCS, others)?
• Driving factors in sweetened beverages, HFCS & obesity.
• What are the new findings regarding the obesity crisis that (a) affect my company overall, (b) impact existing products, and (c) provide opportunity for profitable new products?
• Can I glean insights on how to be more successful in developing and marketing products that are convenient, tasty, profitable and healthier?
• Legal & regulatory uncertainty: what are the risks facing my company given the current climate (Tobacco Road replayed for food)?
• What are other countries doing to respond to this issue?
• Emerging trends (e.g., increasing metabolism rates; nanotechnology for foods).

Forum Leadership

• Dr. Barry Popkin - an economist, nutrition epidemiologist and global authority on dietary and obesity trends and related interactions. Nutrition Professor and Director of the University of North Carolina's Interdisciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC).
• Henry J. Cardello - former executive with Coca-Cola, RJR Nabisco, and General Mills. Mr. Cardello will serve as the Forum's Industry Executive Partner.