The future of Food Supply Chain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The future of Food Supply Chain - Essay Example With the concern moving to the scarcity of resources, the world is facing a new challenge of producing more with lesser resources. The food supply chain industry is dominated by features like increasing demands, increasing volatility risks and limitation of resources. Discussion There are various factors that are likely to shape the future of the global food supply chain industry. The factors arising from the suppliers’ side are: increased competition for expenditures by the consumers, major changes in the operating environment, improvement of the quality of the commodities, high differentiation level of food products, cost-effective and flexible modes of logistics. The factors arising from the viewpoint of the customers are nutritional qualities of the food products, health benefits, sensitivity of the customers towards safety and quality of food, ways of production, place of production, environmental and social concerns and welfare of the community. The most important elemen ts for consideration in the designing of the food supply chains are on-shelf availability and cost efficiency for the businesses. But in the light of the emerging environmental concerns other factors like greenhouse gas emissions, energy conservation, increasing traffic congestions and transportation costs are also gaining importance. Challenges The future of global food supply chain focuses on the following critical dimensions: The global food supply chain industry is feeling the necessity of a paradigm shift in the processes as the future of the industry is considered to be highly different from the past trends in the industry. The need for adopting the latest technologies and innovations by the supply chain like the adaptation of the green supply chain is critical to comply with the raising environmental concerns all across the globe. The challenges arising in the global market which will influence operational changes in the major companies involved in the food supply chain indus try. The food supply chain industry has identified the need to implement a new business model to deal with critical issues like taking up new business opportunities and achieving sustainability in the industry. The increasing demand and the scarcity of resources is a major issue faced by the global food supply chain industry (McKinsey & Company 7). The population of the world is increasing in manifolds and so is the necessity to provide food and nutrition to the global population. According to the latest statistics, more than 850 billion people throughout the globe do not have proper access to food commodities and are more sensitive to price increases and nutritional concerns. The global food supplies need a boost by a considerable increase in the production of environmentally sustainable food commodities. But reaching stabilization is difficult due to the complexity of the food supply chains and the various factors diversely affecting its operations. Internal forces driving change The major changes in the food supply chain industry that will influence the changes in the supply chains are the flow of information, consumer behavior and the movement of goods (McKinsey & Company 12). Since these are internal changes occurring within the industry, the industry would have some control over reshaping these factors. Information flow: The proper flow of informatio