With food companies realising the need to adapt to rapidly evolving environmental and geo-political pressures on global supply networks, we look at what businesses can do to increase resiliency and agility in supply chain management.
Straining supply chains have become headline news over the past couple of years. And particularly in recent months, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Whether issues are being caused by the enduring effects of a global pandemic, by increasingly common climatic changes or by bombardment in one of the world’s key breadbasket regions, experts are issuing warnings about the ever-rising risk of a global food crisis.
Whatever the environmental or geo-political triggers, there’s no doubt about the looming threat to food supplies worldwide. Add in inflationary pressures, the energy crisis and the rapidly rising cost of living and consumers are suddenly very aware of the impact of supply chain problems that they’ve probably never paid much attention to before.
The end of global supply chains as we know them?
Food companies, of course, have long been cognisant of the need for (and importance of) efficient and effective supply chain management. But many executives have also been jolted into action to shore up their supply networks as swiftly as possible. And that brings with it inherent risks...
Manufacturers the world over need to be able to find a way to ensure continued supplies of the ingredients they need – or to support a switch to new and un-tried suppliers of those same products.
In a Newsweek opinion piece, business professors at two prestigious universities in the US proposed that events of the scale the world has experienced in recent months will spell “the end of most global supply chains as we know them”.
As deglobalisation takes hold, they suggest, “future supply chains will be regionalised, more responsive and more resilient”.
Developing both a global and regional supply network could be the way forward for business leaders looking to re-evaluate and potentially re-shape their supply chains – by helping to drastically mitigate the associated risks.
Real-time supply chain risk assessment
LGC Assure has developed an easy and effective way for food companies to access critical information related to food safety, fraud and sustainability across existing and potential supply chains.
Safefood 360 RISK is a new line-of-sight risk management and horizon-scanning tool specifically designed for food safety managers and auditors. A low-cost, standalone solution, it uses big data sources to gain a clear measure of risk in the supply chain, scan for potential risk trends and provide valuable input into the development of local HACCP and PCP plans. It allows companies to make better-informed supply chain management decisions and to be more resilient and agile as the switch to new and un-tried suppliers.
Available to any food company, Safefood 360 RISK brings world-class risk assessment capabilities directly into the food business and enables food safety practitioners to quickly source and use risk data in a form that’s useful for material, supplier and plant risk assessments. They can use this data to evaluate the security of existing or potential supply chains and in the development of more robust food safety and supply chain programmes. It’s also designed to help auditing businesses and retailers transform their audit programmes by making them more focused on actual risks.
Combining three easy-to-use tools in one solution, Safefood 360 RISK enables you to:
- Risk-assess your suppliers and products using reliable data sets and analytical methods – out of the box.
- Quickly profile your products, materials, ingredients and suppliers against food safety and governance indicator data.
- Create and share tailored business intelligence, analytics, KPI dashboards and automatic reporting with your team.
This article was originally featured in the BRCGS Executive Update. This new quarterly email update is designed to provide leaders in the food and drink industry with up-to-date content on the trends shaping the future of the industry. We aim to connect you to opportunities to future proof your organisation, while raising revenues and staying ahead of regulation. Subscribe to see the full update and be the first to receive future update emails straight to your inbox.
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