Supply chain – The COVID-19 pandemic has definitely had its impact influence on the world. Economic indicators and health have been affected and all industries have been completely touched within one of the ways or even another. Among the industries in which it was clearly obvious will be the agriculture and food industry.
Throughout 2019, the Dutch farming as well as food industry contributed 6.4 % to the yucky domestic item (CBS, 2020). Based on the FoodService Instituut, the foodservice industry in the Netherlands dropped € 7.1 billion inside 2020[1]. The hospitality business lost 41.5 % of the turnover of its as show by ProcurementNation, while at the same time supermarkets increased the turnover of theirs with € 1.8 billion.
Disruptions of the food chain have major consequences for the Dutch economy and food security as lots of stakeholders are affected. Even though it was clear to a lot of individuals that there was a huge effect at the end of this chain (e.g., hoarding around supermarkets, restaurants closing) and also at the beginning of the chain (e.g., harvested potatoes not searching for customers), there are numerous actors within the supply chain for which the effect is less clear. It’s therefore important to determine how properly the food supply chain as a whole is actually armed to deal with disruptions. Researchers from the Operations Research and Logistics Group at Wageningen University and also out of Wageningen Economics Research, led by Professor Sander de Leeuw, analyzed the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic throughout the food supplies chain. They based the examination of theirs on interviews with about 30 Dutch supply chain actors.
Need within retail up, in food service down It’s evident and well known that need in the foodservice channels went down on account of the closure of joints, amongst others. In certain instances, sales for vendors in the food service business thus fell to about 20 % of the initial volume. As an adverse reaction, demand in the list stations went up and remained at a degree of aproximatelly 10-20 % higher than before the crisis started.
Products that had to come through abroad had their own issues. With the change in desire coming from foodservice to retail, the demand for packaging improved considerably, More tin, cup and plastic material was necessary for use in customer packaging. As more of this packaging material concluded up in consumers’ houses rather than in restaurants, the cardboard recycling function got disrupted too, causing shortages.
The shifts in need have had an important affect on output activities. In some instances, this even meant the full stop of production (e.g. within the duck farming industry, which arrived to a standstill on account of demand fall out on the foodservice sector). In other situations, a significant portion of the personnel contracted corona (e.g. in the various meats processing industry), causing a closure of equipment.
Supply chain – Distribution pursuits were also affected. The beginning of the Corona crisis of China sparked the flow of sea canisters to slow down pretty soon in 2020. This resulted in transport electrical capacity which is restricted throughout the earliest weeks of the crisis, and high expenses for container transport as a direct result. Truck transportation faced different issues. To begin with, there were uncertainties regarding how transport will be managed for borders, which in the end weren’t as strict as feared. The thing that was problematic in instances which are a large number of, nonetheless, was the accessibility of motorists.
The response to COVID 19 – provide chain resilience The source chain resilience evaluation held by Prof. de Leeuw and Colleagues, was used on the overview of this primary things of supply chain resilience:
Using this particular framework for the analysis of the interview, the conclusions show that few organizations were nicely prepared for the corona crisis and actually mostly applied responsive methods. Probably the most important source chain lessons were:
Figure one. Eight best methods for food supply chain resilience
For starters, the need to develop the supply chain for agility and flexibility. This appears especially complicated for smaller companies: building resilience right into a supply chain takes attention and time in the organization, and smaller organizations usually don’t have the capacity to do so.
Next, it was found that much more attention was necessary on spreading threat and aiming for risk reduction within the supply chain. For the future, this means far more attention should be made available to the manner in which companies depend on suppliers, customers, and specific countries.
Third, attention is required for explicit prioritization as well as intelligent rationing strategies in cases in which need cannot be met. Explicit prioritization is actually necessary to keep on to meet market expectations but in addition to increase market shares wherein competitors miss options. This challenge is not new, although it has also been underexposed in this crisis and was frequently not a part of preparatory activities.
Fourthly, the corona issues shows you us that the monetary result of a crisis additionally depends on the way cooperation in the chain is set up. It is typically unclear how further expenses (and benefits) are sent out in a chain, in case at all.
Finally, relative to other purposeful departments, the businesses and supply chain operates are in the driving seat during a crisis. Product development and advertising activities have to go hand deeply in hand with supply chain pursuits. Regardless of whether the corona pandemic will structurally change the traditional considerations between logistics and generation on the one hand and advertising on the other hand, the future must tell.
How’s the Dutch meal supply chain coping throughout the corona crisis?