Better business - Improving organic and conventional lamb production: A case study of Marks & Spencer, Dawn Meats and two farmers supplying organic and conventional lamb

Over the last decade the retail value of organic meat has grown by 20% year on year. Sales of organic foods in British shops are growing by £2million a week - that’s twice the rate of growth of the general grocery market. With a huge amount of organic produce coming from abroad, there is a big opportunity for UK farmers to exploit the growth in this market. This case study looks at what an organic producer can learn from a conventional producer supplying the same food chain

Supply chain quality analysis in the UK red meat industry

Food Value Chain Analysis (FVCA) has been applied to eight red meat chains from breeding to growth to slaughter to distribution. This paper proposes that in the context of the lean paradigm, quality is more important than time compression to the red meat industry. A case study reported a tentative figure of 23% of “quality effectiveness” for a lamb value chain

Performance Improvements through Implementation of Lean Practices: A Study of the U.K. Red Meat Industry

‘Lean’ is an established industrial paradigm with proven track record in various sectors of the industry (Womack & Jones, 1996). World-class Companies such as Toyota (second biggest global car manufacturer), Porsche’ (most profitable global OEM), Boeing (largest global aerospace business) and Tesco (third largest global retailer) have adopted Lean at the corporate level. This paper reports on the introduction of ‘Lean Thinking’ to a new sector – the ‘Red Meat Industry’ (Food Chain Centre, 2004). This contribution highlights the benefits of lean production techniques in different stages of the red meat value chain and reports 2- 3% potential cost savings at each stage of the chain

Lean thinking in the UK red meat industry: A systems and contingency approach

Food Value Chain Analysis (FVCA) based on the lean paradigm is being applied to eight value chains in the UK red meat industry. This paper is based on the forth chain involving a value added pork for a major retailer. Systems theory is used to evaluate FVCA based on four sub-systems—goals and values, logistics, human resources and management structure. The results show a positive potential logistics benefits along the chain, but identified two key implementation issues; inter-company alignment of other sub-systems and chain organisational stability through time

Value chain analysis in consumer focus improvement: A case study of the UK red meat industry

Purpose – A key vision of tomorrow's industry is creating supply chains which collaboratively strive on enhancing the value to the end-consumer. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the food value chain analysis (FVCA) methodology for improving consumer focus in the agri-food sector based on the lean paradigm, value stream mapping and value chain analysis (Porter, 1985). Design/methodology/approach – This contribution presents a case-study of a UK red meat supply chain explaining how the FVCA method enabled a team of researchers and practitioners to identify the misalignments of both product attributes and supply chain activities with the consumer needs. Findings – This paper explains how the FVCA methodology potentially realigned the processes along the supply chain with the true consumer requirements and why the supply chain effectiveness was improved; this follows with a description of the subsequent efficiency gains from application of the FVCA methodology. Originality/value – This paper further defines the demarcation between supply chain “effectiveness” and “efficiency”. This paper contributes to the debate on the importance of supply chain effectiveness by linking to consumer value at every stage of the supply chain