Introduction
In the previous chapter we analysed innovation patterns in the food industry. We saw that innovation in food companies was broadly centred around three activities: market research, which was seen to play an important role compared with other Norwegian industries, and the core innovative activities of R&D, and the implementation of acquired machinery.
Technological developments are key to understanding the shaping of the food industry. It is important to distinguish between technique on the one hand and
technology on the other. Technology is more than techniques; the ‘logy’ in the word
‘technology’ implies not just techniques, but knowledge of the way in which these techniques are performed. This chapter looks more closely at the role of this knowledge in the food industry. The analysis is separated into two parts. Firstly, we will describe the formal competencies within the industry. We will then look more closely at the knowledge bases within the industry, by which we mean the activities, technologies and knowledge used within the food industry.
Measuring the level of formal knowledge in an industry can be a coarse and problematic way of measuring real competencies. A person trained on the factory floor can be equally efficient or skilled as someone who has been formally trained in a further school or higher education institution. Although it may be the only
statistical means of ‘knowledge mapping’ that is available to us, by measuring formal knowledge we run the risk of underestimating the importance of informal
competencies. The food industry is clearly an industry in which informal knowledge and learning-by-doing are very important to the efficiency of daily production activities.
However, the best argument for using formal knowledge as a proxy for overall knowledge levels within an industry is that people with formal skills are ‘trained for training’. That is to say, they have a better capacity for absorbing new information in a systematic way, they may be more interested in learning, and they may have a basic knowledge platform from which they can learn to perform certain operations quickly while others would have to learn them from scratch. Many would disagree with this view, and we shall not pursue the debate in full here. However, we do acknowledge the inherent weaknesses in the use of formal knowledge as a proxy for industry-wide competency levels.
The food industry 81
skill levels as a significant problem. Employees are trained on the factory floor, by their colleagues or their managers. Some tasks are so company-specific (see case- study of Nøttefabrikken) that they have no parallel in public education, while other tasks are regarded as being so simple to perform that no formal background is required (see case-study of Majonæsfabrikken).
Because innovation by definition implies doing something new, in many cases it requires some capacity for systematic learning. The ability to learn is not evenly distributed among employees, and formal skills can be regarded as a proxy for the degree to which employees have been “trained to train”. Figure 10 shows the proportion of employees with further school qualification or higher in all
manufacturing companies and food companies - for Norway as a whole, and for the Oslo region - respectively.
The chart shows us two interesting things. Firstly, food companies in Oslo have a higher proportion of educated employees on their staff than the average for all food companies in Norway. However, the difference is rather small: 42.1% as opposed to 40.6%. More interestingly, the chart shows that Oslo-based manufacturing
companies in general have a higher proportion of educated employees than their national competitors. The proportion in Oslo is 55%, compared to 50% for all Norwegian manufacturing companies. So if we adjust for Oslo’s apparent status as a centre for formal skills, the Oslo region food industry scores relatively poorly in relation to the country as a whole. The difference between manufacturing companies in Oslo and in Norway as a whole, in terms of the proportion of employees with further school education, is 10%. In the same terms, the difference between food companies in Oslo and Norway as a whole is only 4%. This means that the formal education level in the food industry in Oslo is lower than we would expect when taking into account the region’s collective education level, although the differences are small.
Figure 10: Percentages of employees with further school qualification or higher in, respectively, manufacturing industries in Norway, manufacturing industries in Oslo, food companies in Norway, and food companies in the Oslo region. Source:
Employment register, 1996, STEP Group / SSB.
0 % 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 %
Formal skills in small Oslo-based companies
Although the above findings might lead us to assume that small companies in the Oslo region have the lowest proportion of formally skilled employees, this is not in fact the case. The percentage of employees with further school qualifications is highest in companies with less than 50 employees, and lowest in companies with 200 or more employees. The proportion for small companies is 46%, compared to 41% for the largest companies. Companies with 50-199 employees have a percentage that is average for the region: 42%.
Table 5: Proportion of employees with further school or higher qualifications in Oslo-based companies, by company size. Source: Employment register, 1996, STEP Group / SSB.
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There are several possible explanations for this result. It may be that large
companies, to a greater extent than small companies, tend to internalise tasks that traditionally require only low levels of formal training, such as transport and cleaning. Another explanation might be that small companies employ a larger proportion of younger people, who are in general more likely to have completed further school than older workers. There are also indications that the largest
companies deliberately and systematically hire unskilled women and non-European immigrants (see Ringnes case-study).
What types of formal skills are found in Oslo companies, and are there any
differences between Oslo and rest of the country with respect to these skill profiles? Our research findings suggest that slight differences do exist. In our analysis we have chosen to divide employees into four groups according to their formal skills. These groups are i) Market and commerce-related training, ii) Food-related/vocational training, iii) Other I (further school or higher qualification), and iv) Other II (secondary or lower). The Market and commerce category includes further school studies and higher education in subjects such as ‘handel og kontorfag’ (trade and office studies), ‘regnskapslinje’ (accountancy), ‘markedsføringslinje’ (marketing) and ‘siviløkonomiutdanning’ (economic development). Food/vocational training includes school qualifications in areas such as ‘maskin og mekanikerlinje’ (machines & mechanic training), ‘pølsemakerutdanning’ (sausage-making) ‘fiskeindustrifag’ (fishing industry studies), ‘bakere’ (baking), ‘husmorskoleutdanning’ (home economics) and ‘konditorer’ . The third category, Other I (Further and higher)
The food industry 83
There is no such difference in the proportions of employees with vocational training in food-related subjects. The percentages are almost identical (17.4% for Norway and 17.7% for Oslo). For employees with less relevant education (that is, outside the
market and commerce or food/vocational categories), we find that only 6% of
employees in Norwegian food companies have finished further school. The same figure for Oslo is 15.5%41.
Figure 11: Types of formal skills in food companies in Norway and Oslo41.
Source: Employment register, 1996, STEP Group / SSB
0 % 10 % 20 % 30 % 40 % 50 % 60 % 70 % Food companies Norway Food companies Oslo Marketing, commerce Food vocational Other (secondary +) Other (primary -)
Knowledge mapping
The knowledge base of the industry
Due to the sheer magnitude and complexity of the industry, the knowledge base of the Norwegian food industry is actually made up of multiple knowledge bases, drawing on a variety of inputs from a breadth of disciplines that few other
Norwegian industries have to balance. Food production encompasses such diverse activities as the selection and preparation of raw materials, processing, preservation and storing, packaging, wrapping and coating, hygiene and safety, quality and nutrition, quality control and quality documentation, transport and distribution, and trading, sales and marketing. As the Lindgaard-Christensen report states: “The
[food] industry is already near the forefront of industries in the application of a breadth of different scientific advances, i.e. innovating by means of ‘new combinations’ of scientific disciplines” (pp. 1-2).
We have shown that Oslo-based food companies are more frequent users of scientific inputs than provincial food companies (see for example Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9). A survey performed in the national food industry by STEP Group in 1997 highlights the extensive use of research environments, and illustrates the way in which this complex system works in “real life”. In the survey, Norwegian food companies were asked which research environments they regarded as being
41
Figures only include figures for the 40 most common education directions in each region (Oslo and Norway). For Norway as a whole, this includes 30.000 of 55.000 employees. For Oslo, this includes 1709 of 7.500 employees.
important knowledge providers to their field of production. The results are shown in Table 2. The table lists the main knowledge areas in the food industry, along with over 30 institutions that are important knowledge providers in these areas.
Table 6: Dominant technological areas and scientific knowledge developers for the
Norwegian food industry (Oslo-based companies in bold)42
Several interesting points emerge from this table. Firstly, we see that most of the more frequent knowledge suppliers are located in the Oslo region. These knowledge suppliers include Jordforsk (Ås), Planteforsk (Ås), Matforsk (Ås), Norges
Landbrukshøgskole/NLH (Ås), Norges Veterinærhøyskole/NVH (Oslo) and the University of Oslo (UiO; incl. Ernæringsinstituttet). The list also includes Oslo-based industry-owned research facilities such as TINE Norske Meierier and Norsk Kjøtt. Secondly, it seems that the most extensive supplier of knowledge to the food industry is Matforsk, located at Ås, which according to the table supplies almost all food- related activities with scientific knowledge.
Thirdly, we see that most of the knowledge providers are institutions that traditionally operate within the 'agrofood' sector of the food industry; Jordforsk, Planteforsk, NLH, Potetindustriens landsforening, Norske Meierier, Norsk Kjøtt and Kontrollinstituttet for meieriprodukter.
Summary
This chapter has examined the knowledge systems within the Oslo region’s food industry. We have shown that food processing companies in the Oslo region have a slightly higher proportion of formally skilled/qualified employees than food
companies in the rest of the country, but this discrepancy becomes negligible when we take into account the generally high education levels in the region. We have also
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