Supply chain – The COVID 19 pandemic has certainly had the impact of its impact on the planet. Economic indicators and health have been compromised and all industries are touched within one way or even some other. One of the industries in which this was clearly visible will be the farming and food business.
Throughout 2019, the Dutch extension and food sector contributed 6.4 % to the yucky domestic item (CBS, 2020). According to the FoodService Instituut, the foodservice business in the Netherlands lost € 7.1 billion within 2020[1]. The hospitality industry lost 41.5 % of its turnover as show by ProcurementNation, while at the identical time supermarkets enhanced the turnover of theirs with € 1.8 billion.
Disruptions of the food chain have significant consequences for the Dutch economy as well as food security as a lot of stakeholders are affected. Though it was clear to a lot of folks that there was a huge effect at the conclusion of the chain (e.g., hoarding in supermarkets, restaurants closing) and at the start of this chain (e.g., harvested potatoes not finding customers), there are a lot of actors in the supply chain for that will the effect is much less clear. It is therefore vital that you find out how effectively the food supply chain as a whole is actually armed to deal with disruptions. Researchers in the Operations Research as well as Logistics Group at Wageningen University and coming from Wageningen Economics Research, led by Professor Sander de Leeuw, analyzed the consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic throughout the food supply chain. They based their examination on interviews with about 30 Dutch source chain actors.
Demand in retail up, found food service down It’s obvious and well known that demand in the foodservice channels went down due to the closure of joints, amongst others. In certain instances, sales for vendors in the food service industry thus fell to aproximatelly 20 % of the initial volume. As an adverse reaction, demand in the list stations went up and remained at a quality of about 10-20 % greater than before the problems started.
Products which had to come via abroad had the own problems of theirs. With the change in desire from foodservice to retail, the demand for packaging improved considerably, More tin, cup and plastic was required for use in consumer packaging. As much more of this particular packaging material concluded up in consumers’ houses as opposed to in joints, the cardboard recycling process got disrupted also, causing shortages.
The shifts in need have had a significant impact on output activities. In a few instances, this even meant the full stop of production (e.g. within the duck farming business, which came to a standstill due to demand fall out in the foodservice sector). In other situations, a big section of the personnel contracted corona (e.g. in the various meats processing industry), resulting in a closure of equipment.
Supply chain – Distribution activities were also affected. The beginning of the Corona crisis in China sparked the flow of sea canisters to slow down fairly shortly in 2020. This resulted in transport capacity that is limited throughout the earliest weeks of the problems, and high costs for container transport as a direct result. Truck transport faced different issues. Initially, there were uncertainties regarding how transport would be managed for borders, which in the long run were not as stringent as feared. That which was problematic in cases that are a large number of , however, was the availability of drivers.
The response to COVID 19 – deliver chain resilience The supply chain resilience evaluation held by Prof. de Colleagues as well as Leeuw, was based on the overview of this main things of supply chain resilience:
To us this framework for the assessment of the interview, the findings indicate that not many businesses had been well prepared for the corona problems and actually mainly applied responsive methods. The most notable source chain lessons were:
Figure 1. 8 best methods for meals supply chain resilience
For starters, the need to design the supply chain for agility and versatility. This seems particularly complicated for small companies: building resilience right into a supply chain takes attention and time in the organization, and smaller organizations oftentimes do not have the capability to do so.
Second, it was discovered that more attention was necessary on spreading threat as well as aiming for risk reduction inside the supply chain. For the future, this means more attention should be made available to the manner in which organizations rely on suppliers, customers, and specific countries.
Third, attention is necessary for explicit prioritization as well as clever rationing strategies in situations where need can’t be met. Explicit prioritization is actually necessary to keep on to meet market expectations but in addition to boost market shares in which competitors miss options. This task is not new, but it’s in addition been underexposed in this problems and was frequently not a component of preparatory activities.
Fourthly, the corona issues teaches us that the financial result of a crisis additionally depends on the manner in which cooperation in the chain is set up. It’s typically unclear exactly how extra costs (and benefits) are distributed in a chain, in case at all.
Last but not least, relative to other functional departments, the businesses and supply chain functions are actually in the driving accommodate during a crisis. Product development and advertising activities have to go hand in deep hand with supply chain events. Regardless of whether the corona pandemic will structurally change the classic considerations between logistics and production on the one hand and advertising on the other hand, the potential future will have to tell.
How’s the Dutch meal supply chain coping during the corona crisis?