The role of food retailers in improving resilience in global food supply

MACFADYEN, S.; TYLIANAKIS, JM; LETROUNEAU, D.; BENTON, T.; TITTONELL, P.

Global Food Security

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2016 vol. 7 p. 1 - 8

We urgently need a more resilient food supply system that is robust enough to absorb and recoverquickly from shocks, and to continuously provide food in the face of significant threats. The simplifiedglobal food supply chain we currently rely upon exacerbates threats to supply and is unstable. Muchattention has been given to how producers can maximise yield, but less attention has been given to otherstakeholders in the supply chain. Increasingly, transnational food retailers (supermarkets) occupy acritical point in the chain, which makes them highly sensitive to variability in supply, and able to encouragechange of practice across large areas. We contend that the concentration in the chain down to afew retailers in each country provides an opportunity to increase resilience of future supply given appropriate,scale-dependent interventions. We make ten recommendations aimed at reducing variabilityin supply that can be driven by retailers (although some of the interventions will be implemented byproducers). Importantly, resilience in our food supply requires the restoration and expansion of ecosystemservices at the landscape-scale.