Food Supply Chain Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Food Supply Chain - Essay Example This study is about a detail analysis of each process of the food supply chain and has highlighted the possible hazards involved in the process and also provided possible solutions to assess the problems. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Operations 4 Key processes 6 Problem findings 8 Recommendation 8 Reference 10 Introduction The global food industry relies on the web of intercompany relationship. There is an interaction among the individuals and the institutions involved in the food industry. These are vendors, food packaging providers, co-manufacturers, re-packers, brokers and other suppliers. To become an efficient supplier of a food processing company, an individual or a business needs a substantial amount of investment due to develop the quality maintenance process of food ingredients. By the effective action plans, the prevention of production as well as distribution of contaminated foods can be done which is the key value of supply chain in food industry. To ensure safe production and the distribution of the food product, the companies in the food industry need to engage efficient suppliers who can provide quality ingredients, packaging materials through efficient distribution process and medium that compliment food companies’ key goals. ... Quality retention and hygienic factor of foods are maintained in each stage from sourcing of food ingredients to on time delivery to the individual customers (Maurer, 2003). Few important terms are very popular in the area of the food supply chain like â€Å"farm to fork† and sometimes â€Å"paddock to plate†. These terms are used to mention the length of supply chain process and the two end participants of supply chains are the producer of food ingredients and the final consumers. In-between them there are many people involved in this process. The growers of food ingredients i.e. basically the farmers are responsible for efficient cultivation and production of different crops which is influenced by few more things like the quality of seeds, climate, soil and fertilizers to boost the production level. These cultivated food products are consumed by food production companies as the ingredients for process food products and also directly consumed by individuals in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables. There are suppliers who take the cultivated crops from the growers and supply those to the manufacturers or the producers of processed foods. The quality of the ingredients depends on the storage and the distribution process of the suppliers. This process has not much effect on the quality of the processed food produced by the food production companies as they take shorted foods only from the suppliers (GMA, 2008, p.8). Some producers take damage ingredients from the suppliers in low price in order to reduce the cost of production of processed foods so that they can sale the final product in low prices and can compete in price even with the big companies who believe in the quality sources of ingredients and