The 2020 was an uncommon year for everyone, but it brought to the fore for our association and the Food Industry in general a few basic facts that we can accept as conclusions and summaries of the past year. She showed in the first place how well organized and how stable the Bulgarian food industry is. We were one of the few countries in Europe that never allowed empty shelves. I don't know if consumers appreciate how much effort this has cost the industry, but for me this is an achievement that we should definitely emphasize.

On the other hand, facing the crisis, it has shown us how important it is to be united as an industry. It is a little known fact that in the first week of the declaration of the state of emergency all the main branch organizations in the sector made an informal board of the food industry and within this board - by e-mail, via viber, we worked almost on a daily basis to solve very important for us as an industry problems, such as the provision of green corridors, protective equipment, active communication with the state institutions. In fact, when we founded our organization "Food Drink Bulgaria", one of our main ideas was to unite the industry and the crisis over the past year proved how necessary and useful this unification is. Initially, our idea was to unite all other sectoral organizations within the Association, as associate members, so that coordination could take place in one place.