How sustainable is the global food supply model?

When I was working on my PhD I chose to study the poultry supply chain for a variety of reasons including the fact that it was one of the first global integrated food supply models. Although the model has been very successful in the past, my study looked at how sustainable this food supply model is into the future. I wrote two papers that have been published on the subject (see peer-reviewed journal publications):

Manning L., and Baines R.N., Globalisation. A study of the poultry meat supply chain. British Food Journal Vol. 106 No. 10/11, 2004 pp 819-836. Emerald Group Publishing; and

Manning L., Baines R.N., and Chadd S.A., Trends in the global poultry meat supply chain. British Food Journal Vol. 108 No. 5. 2006 pp. 332-342. Emerald Group Publishing.

The second paper concluded in part that the poultry supply chain model had led to the "development of power bases at integrator and retailer level with a dependence on technology and administrative resource to drive such strategies as centralised buying and product distribution. This has led to an increase in costs which to date have been met by expansion and increasing business turnover often being financed by external capital sources."

The viability of this model has further been influenced by the increasing cost of poultry feed and fuel (transport and processing) over the last twelve months as well as the rising cost of compliance with environmental, animal welfare and food safety legislation.  The model is also increasingly affected by market influences of supply and demand and the influence of concern over animal diseases such as avian influenza H5N1.  One of the major influences though has been and continues to be the ability of the whole supply chain or specific sectors to effectively manage actual and perceived investment risk and continue to service their long-term debt liabilities.

Recently there has been increased consolidation of the poultry supply chain in the UK as well as the US. Marketwatch indicated this week that Pilgrim's Pride are continuing to restructure and Bloomberg.com reported two weeks ago that stocks for Tyson Food Inc.,  fell  after third-quarter profit slumped 92 percent because of rising feed costs.

Henry Ford once said that "You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year. There is a new business baseline coming one that will be different to one that has gone before. We will increasingly have to absorb the true cost and impact of global population demand and subsequent production to meet that demand in the price we pay for products. This will further challenge existing models and will drive the need for innovation and novel thoughts and ideas.