Even if there wasn’t so much interesting stuff to discuss it would have been worth sitting through yesterday’s IGD Convention just for the annual delight that is host Michael Buerk ripping all the day’s speakers to shreds - strictly tongue in cheek , of course.

He quipped that Philip Clarke’s opening video - showing the hard realities facing everyday families - was enough to have him reaching for the Everyday Value razor blades. Buerk also called IGD president Joanne Denney-Finch a “study in scarlet” and lived to tell the tale, while Marc Bolland - resplendent in a 100% recycled suit - was, according to the newsreader, the only man in the room able to “wear waste like Savile Row”.

But several of his remarks rang true: admiring the enduring invention and good nature of the industry’s finest; his mock-despair at the “god-awful gloomy lives” of the downtrodden nation of shoppers. If the IGD had deployed its electronic voting pads to ask those in the room if they shared his alternative verdict on the day’s proceedings, we could have had some interesting results.

If there was plenty of hot air in the room, it wasn’t all down to the spicy chorizo on offer at the networking buffet. In truth nobody at the Lancaster hotel - from the online hotshots of Google and Amazon, to the most traditional of suppliers - had ready answers at their fingertips to the day’s biggest questions. When will the UK come out of the downturn? How does the UK react to the threat and the opportunities posed by China? How should supermarkets re-invent themselves in the age of the smartphone?

Most there were honest enough to admit (privately, anyway) that they didn’t have instant solutions. But there was also plenty of evidence to suggest that if one industry can figure it out, it’s ours.

From Justin King’s political hand grenade to George Osborne - devastatingly effective at undermining his shares for workers’ rights scheme - to another study in scarlet, Judith McKenna, calling for Asda to respond to the digital revolution with a new breed of employee fresh from Silicon valley, it was obvious we grocery boasts some of the brightest and most able business leaders out there.

And the increasing presence from previous years of the likes of Google and Amazon was also encouraging, demonstrating they need to forge new trading relationships with the establishment, just as it must adapt to them.

Personalisation and cooperation were the two buzzwords of the day. Nobody has figured out yet how to crack the first, while the second has in the past been enough to give sales directors hot flushes.

But with the industry facing up to what Denney-Finch called a “fundamental readjustment”, rather than simply a recession, now really could be the time to chuck away the old rulebook.

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