Fresh food: 6 major supply chain challenges

A particularly demanding chain

Fresh goods are perishable and fragile. Animal products demand strict cold chain discipline; ripe fruit and vegetables need careful handling. Quality has to be preserved at every step, from packing to transport to storage.

Six pressure points

• Extremely short product life cycles leaving no slack for delay
• A highly fragmented landscape of producers, wholesalers and buyers
• Regulatory pressure on traceability, labelling and sustainability
• Volatile prices and volumes driven by weather and seasonality
• Cost control across transport, energy and cold storage
• Environmental expectations on emissions, packaging and waste

What holds it together

Each of these challenges is amplified by poor information flow. Where orders, availability and quality data circulate cleanly between partners, the chain absorbs shocks instead of transmitting them.