The Conference Board of Canada has released a report analyzing the economic forces shaping Canadaโs food supply chains.
Titled, โFast and Fresh: A Recipe for Canadaโs Food Supply Chainsโ the studyย provides recommendations for improving the food supply chain, which include:
โขย ย ย ย ย ย Developing supply chain efficiency metrics to evaluate ongoing changes in supply chain and transportation options;
โขย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Re-evaluating the potential for rail transportation of fresh and frozen food products;
โขย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Assessing the impact of domestic and foreign hinterland infrastructure improvements;
โขย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Increasing collaboration between importers and exporters; and
โขย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Educating consumers on the benefits of improvements to food supply chains.
โFood has all of the worst characteristics of something that needs to be shipped. That is the challenge that buyers and sellers of food face on a daily basis. Canadaโs food supply chains are at the base of many food issues. The nature of these chains has an impact on Canadian companiesโ competitiveness, the kinds of foods that Canadians eat, the prices they pay, and even the environmental footprint of Canadaโs food economy,โ said the Conference Board of Canada in the release.
While Canadaโs supply chain infrastructure and expertise is mature, there are some evolving trends and ongoing incremental changes can still have large impacts for food producers and retailers.
For example, many intermodal containers that enter Canada are shipped back out of the country empty. Collaborative efforts between shippers and carriers that help to efficiently reposition empty containers within Canada in order to ship them back out full can help to reduce logistics costs. Government policies that help to relieve logistics bottlenecks, either through more efficient border processes or investments in infrastructure, can have disproportionate effects on the competiveness of fresh foods in particular.
In some cases, where transit time is reduced by just a few hours, a product can suddenly be exposed to new markets around the world.
The report also concludes that supply chain efficiency metrics need to be developed in order to evaluate ongoing changes in supply chain and transportation options. This can help develop opportunities and manage threats as they happen. Policy-makers can and should use parallel metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of public investments and public policies.
Both domestic and foreign hinterland infrastructure improvements can have major impacts on the cost and viability of moving food products from one place to another, so shippers and policy-makers should be aware of and understand changes on the other end of their logistics chains as well.
Businesses can educate consumers on the environmental impacts of food products using a supply chain approach in order to widen the current narrow focus on the transportation impacts. The full report isย available here.
