Assessment 2 - Essay Example

Assessment 2 Introduction The perishable nature of fruits and vegetables does not allow them to be stored for longer time. Thus they need some very important back up of incorporated supply chain management system to process, trade and market them. According to FruitVeB (2008) “the inconsistent availability of healthy fruits and vegetables from farm-gate to the consumers, continuous quality assurance push by the traders and supermarkets, competitive global environment, increasing trend of better supply by companies of other competitive countries and also more and more implications of quality standards are also other parallel competitive elements making this business more vulnerable and complex.” Thus in order to deal with these confronts, the only incorporated way to be enforced from farm gate accumulation by washing, rating, covering, storing and selling to final users is to set up the reliable and sustainable supply arrangement of “Farm-To-Fork Approach”. This approach is presently altered as Supply Chain Management (SCM). Since consumers are becoming more aware of the dietetic potentiality in fruits and vegetables, their demand is always on the rise. This has resulted in boosting the yearly production thereby increasing exports and imports of these horticultural supplies around the world. Based on the Statistical Yearbook of FAO (2009), the world output of fruits and vegetables in 1996 was 98.0 million tons which modified to 146.0 million tons in 2007. Likewise, in 1996, the aggregate exports were 20.0 billion US$ which then altered to 44.0 billion US$ in 2007, while, imports of these fruits and vegetables were 25.0 and 49.0 billion US$ in the same years. Ethical issues in SCM Joszef et al., (2009) states that “in general, SCM is one entity, which helps foster to manage and meet customer needs by improving every element of the supply chain, whereas, the role of food safety, quality requirements and their evaluation in international trade is also receiving more and more attention. Among the components of consumer behaviour, motives related to safety are getting stronger and as a result, an increasing attention is given to the interrelations of food safety, quality, supply chain and ethical issues.” Consumers these days are very conscious of their health with respect to cleanliness, origin of the food, components of processed food and caloric capacity. Thus According to Kalei, (2008) safe food and good quality are very important all over the world. Distribution and institution of the quality guarantee systems like GLOBALGAP, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), International Food Standards (IFS), etc., as an imperative undertaking, have become central parts for both production and business deal (Biacs, 1999). Source: Ahmad et al., 2009 The significance of some fundamental user tendencies can be proved in various significant growths. First of all the diverse connects in the supply chain are more and more seeking to converse more openly with the final customer as they strive for consumer’s business. The shopper’s buying act should also have a larger effect and this is what all the players want. Retail merchants are attempting to tempt the consumer outlook by exhibiting themselves as a superior brand. Thus according to Ricks et al., (1999) “SCM is a collection of management activities exercised between vertically related firms to improve efficiency, vertical coordination, and overall performance and competitiveness of the participating firms within an industry.” Consequently, the study concentrated on structural alteration and its affects in the fruits and vegetables industry has directed the bigger participants in the industry, with a reduction of concentration paid to the affects of alteration on middle and smaller-classed companies or their dealings to efficiently manage in this environment. Quality and food safety are the most integrated activities, embedded with each other. For agri-food products, quality may be regarded as a complex characteristic of foods that determines its value and acceptability by consumers. Quality is in reality a continuing process and so in horticultural commodities quality cannot be bettered after their harvest but they can only be maintained. Thus it is crucial to harvest fruits and vegetables at the appropriate phase and dimension and at prime quality. “Supply chain management is the only paramount outlet, help managing the uniform quality and regular availability of safe food everywhere” (Sackey et al., 2001). The core of supply chain management is to decrease the contribute time to proper level from harvesting through packing and selling of these horticultural commodities. While, belated reaping, shipping and reaching various cold stores or pack houses for further treating, influence unfavorably on the quality of fruits and vegetables due to the occurrence of field heat for a longer period of time (Tomas and Robins, 1997). In some supermarkets the change is beyond wider trends in corporate ‘accountability’ Zadek, (1998) states “Whereas relations between supermarkets were once characterised by a policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ regarding, say, pesticide use and labour conditions, now supermarkets do ask, and suppliers must tell all about the production process: what chemicals are used, how the labour is clothed, housed, and kept well; how the environment is protected.” Actually the supermarkets are keen to inform their customers as to how their foods are produced and they use the highest level of environmental and social principles. According to Tomas and Robins, (1997) “Effective participation by the government authorities in international standard setting (e.g., participation in international, regional and national codex committees) is a must to develop a base and establish a platform of SCM of fruits and vegetables in any country.” The growers of fruit and vegetables must be controlled powerfully to buy plant nursery of fruits and seeds of vegetables from the licensed nurseries and suppliers. Constant quality control and drive by the dealers and supermarkets and more significances of quality measures, makes this business more exposed and multifarious. Thus to establish anticipation and sustain supply chain system, the pack houses should apply all required quality standards and quality control laboratories in their premises. This will help them to make routine chemical analysis both pesticide residues and sensory evaluation. This kind of cooperation is a part of TO-BE approach in SCM. As a vital part of SCM, this very important movement will also assist drawing back any health threat if it could happen in entire supply chain. Incorporated SCM also necessitates that all the business partners like processors, suppliers and customers to sit around unitedly and take measures to work together and make potential growths in order to target market wants and endorsement of fruits and vegetables (Trienekens et al., 2003). References 1. Biacs, P. (1999). Food quality and safety Agro-21 66-70 2. Dr. Muhammad Mushtaq Ahmad, Dr. Péter Fehér, 2009, Supply chain of fruits and vegetables and correlated impact of managing the quality 3. FruitVeB (2008) Annual Report of Hungarian Fruit and Vegetable Sector Hungarian Interprofessional Organization for Fruit and Vegetables, Budapest, Hungary 4. FAO (2009) Statistical Yearbook of Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations 5. József L., B.I. Csaba, N. Komáromi and Z. Lehota (2009) Development of Traceability in Hungarian fresh vegetable and fruit sector. 4th Aspects and Visions of Applied Economics and Informatics March 26 - 27. Debrecen, Hungary. 6. Kalei S.N. (2008). Supply Chain Management in Food Industry Ifai University Press. 7. Ricks, D, T. Woods and J. Sterns (1999) Supply Chain Management: Improving Vertical Coordination in Fruit Industries. J. Food Distribution Res. 30(3):44–53. 8. Sackey, B.A., P. Mensah, E. Collison and E.S. Dawson (2001) Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella and Escherichia coli in live and dressed poultry from metropolitan Accra. Intl. J. Food Microbiology 71(1):21-28. 9. Tomas, B.F.A. and R.J. Robins (1997) Phytochemistry of fruits and vegetables Oxford Science Publ., Oxford, UK: 375. 10. Trienekens, J.H., J.M. Hagen, A.J.M. Beulensc and S.W.F. Omta (2003) Innovation through (International) Food Supply Chain Development: A Research Agenda. Intl. Food Agribusiness Management Review. 6(1):1-6. 11. Zadek, S. 1998. Balancing performance, ethics and accountability Journal of Business Ethics 17: 1421-41 Read More