Supply chain management has become an increasingly important topic to agribusiness managers during the past five years. Drivers of this trend include buyers seeking higher levels of customer service and efforts by firms to control costs, especially inventory. This case introduces the reader to...

The authors conducted a series of structured interviews with managers of ten supermarket chains in Shanghai to compare supermarket business practices in Shanghai with those in the United States, emphasizing logistics management issues. Shanghai supermarkets tend to be smaller than U.S. stores,...

In recent years increasing attention has been given to environmental supply chain management (ESCM). One of the supporting instruments of ESCM is life cycle assessment (LCA). The idea of integrating LCA into supply chains is gaining more support among research institutes and companies. However,...

Within the UK retail sector, relationships between retailers, processors and farmers have changed, as vertical co-ordination has emerged as a strategy to manage the perceived risks associated with the consumption of beef. However, little attention has been given to the examination of contractual...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that explain outward and inward merger and acquisition (M/A) activity for a country. The variables used to explain M/A activity include the exchange rate, interest rate, and stock market prices. Regression analysis is used to isolate and...

Two phenomena are occurring simultaneously within the agribusiness sector: customers are requiring tighter product specifications and agricultural chains are becoming more coordinated. However, the exact relationship between these two phenomena is not clear. This research explores that...

Identity preserving production and marketing (IPPM) systems are used extensively in the Canadian canola industry to segregate varieties with different traits from the commodity stream. This paper examines one use of identify preserved production and marketing systems for genetically modified...

The milk clusters in the Latin American countries studied share key characteristics in their patterns of development in the 1990s, in particular the rising importance of multinationals and large domestic firms in the processing and distribution segments of the milk products chains. This tends to...

High-tech information systems can offer competitive advantages to agri-food firms when the systems support a supply chain strategy that suits the demand for the product. This article discusses differences between supply chains for functional versus innovative products and the relevance for...