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For a period, the answer seemed obvious. Digital marketing offered measurable reach, controllable messaging, and clear attribution. PR felt slower, harder to quantify, and dependent on relationships that took years to build. Budgets shifted accordingly. Some companies reduced their trade media presence significantly. Others stopped altogether.
What many of them discovered, over time, was that something harder to name had quietly disappeared with it.
Credibility in the food ingredients and technology sector is not built through visibility alone. It is built through the accumulation of editorial presence in the publications and platforms that the industry's decision-makers actually trust. A feature in Food Technology or Food Ingredients First is not just coverage. It is a signal, to buyers, partners and potential clients, that an independent editor judged the company's expertise worth publishing.
That signal cannot be replicated by a paid placement, however well-targeted. The reader knows the difference. More importantly, the reader's subconscious filing system knows the difference. Companies that maintained their editorial presence through the years when others retreated to digital tend to occupy a different kind of mental real estate in their market.
[Potential akp insert: a specific observation from client work – e.g. companies that reduced PR budgets during a particular period, and what they found when they tried to rebuild editorial presence.]
Several things have converged to make the case for PR stronger now than it was five years ago. The volume of digital content has increased to a point where much of it is simply not absorbed. AI-generated material is everywhere, and experienced readers in technical industries have become faster at identifying it and discounting it. Editorial standards in respected trade publications have not dropped. If anything, the contrast has sharpened.
There is also the question of AI visibility. When professionals use AI tools to research suppliers, ingredients, or market developments, the answers those systems generate draw on sources they have learned to trust. Consistent editorial coverage in established trade media directly influences that source layer. A company that has built a track record of substantive contributions to industry publications is structurally better positioned in AI-generated results than one whose digital presence is dominated by its own content.
Being the voice an editor calls when a regulation changes or a supply chain issue surfaces does not happen by accident. It is the result of years of consistent, credible contribution to industry conversations: interviews, bylined articles, expert commentary, the occasional opinion piece that takes a real position. That reputation cannot be bought and cannot be built quickly. But once established, it compounds.
We have worked with editors across Europe, North America and Asia since 2002. The dynamic has not fundamentally changed: journalists publish stories, not press releases. What has changed is that the bar for what counts as a story has risen, because the supply of material has increased so dramatically. Subject matter expertise and editorial judgment matter more now, not less.
There is a dimension to media selection that did not exist five years ago and is still absent from most communications strategies. When planning PR and advertising placements, the question of whether a publication makes its content machine-readable has become strategically relevant. Not as a technical footnote, but as a core selection criterion.
Large language models draw on indexed, accessible editorial content when generating answers to professional queries. A company that earns consistent coverage in publications whose content is structured and accessible to AI systems is building visibility in two places simultaneously: with the human reader, and with the AI that an increasing number of professionals now use as their first research tool. In B2B communications for the food industry, LLMs have become stakeholders in their own right. Ignoring them in media planning is no different from ignoring a distribution channel that reaches a significant share of your target audience.
This applies equally to PR placements and advertising. A media partner whose content is paywalled, unindexed, or structurally opaque to machine processing may still have value for human reach. But that value is partial. At akp, media selection now explicitly considers machine readability alongside editorial quality, audience relevance, and reach.
None of this is an argument against advertising. A well-placed campaign can amplify editorial coverage, extend the reach of a story that has already earned credibility, and accelerate awareness in a new market. PR and advertising are most effective when they are planned together, with each reinforcing what the other does well. The mistake is treating them as alternatives, or assuming that paid reach can substitute for earned credibility. It cannot. But it can make earned credibility travel further.
For companies in food ingredients, nutraceuticals, packaging or food technology, the question worth asking is not whether PR still matters. It is whether the current communications strategy reflects the way this industry actually forms opinions and makes decisions. Trade editors are not obligated to cover anyone. The companies that earn consistent coverage over time are the ones that bring genuine expertise, relevant stories, and the willingness to engage with the industry's real conversations rather than their own messaging priorities.
That is a longer game than a campaign. The returns, however, are not short-term either.
