Sourcing Challenges and Solutions in UK Food Retail Industry Supply Chain

Running head: SOURCING CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
SOURCING CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS IN THE UK FOOD SUPPLY
CHAIN. A CASE STUDY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOURCING CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
Table of Contents
• Topic.........................................................................................................................................2
• Proposed Title:.........................................................................................................................2
• Synopsis....................................................................................................................................2
• Research Question....................................................................................................................3
• Aims and Objectives................................................................................................................4
• Data to be collected..................................................................................................................4
• Proposed Analytical Technique(s)...........................................................................................5
• Literature/Data Sources Investigated to Date...........................................................................5
• Proposed Timescale..................................................................................................................7
• Discussed With.........................................................................................................................7
Foreseeable problems......................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

2SOURCING CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
• Topic
What are the sourcing issues and challenges in UK food retail industry Supply chain and possible
solutions that companies are using,
• Proposed Title:
Sourcing challenges and issues in the UK food retail industry supply chain and solutions with
existing example from the industry top retailers
• Synopsis
Retailers were once effectively the passive recipients of products, allocated to stores by
manufacturers in anticipation of demand .Today retailers are the active designers and controllers
of product supply in reaction to known customer demand. They control, organize and manage the
supply chain from production to consumption. This is the essence of retail logistics and supply
chain transformation that has taken place (John Fernie & Leigh Sparks 2009). Because of this big
change that sourcing function plays a very big role in making sure that customers’ finds food in
the retail shelves at all the times as this is a basic need. The UK sourcing or importation of food
and nonalcoholic beverages has gone up and we see problems with companies like KFC shutting
down half of its 900 outlets in the UK due to supply chain failures. It is decided in the proposed
project to discuss sourcing issues and challenges and possible solutions in the Uk food industry.
The food industry of the country has to depend on resources sourced from both domestic
and international sources. The food industry of UK is fairly large and can be essentially affected
by many factors (Grimm, Hofstetter & Sarkis, 2012). One of the major factors that is identified is
the greater pressure on imported food sources. Moreover, many of the companies have been

3SOURCING CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND SOLUTIONS
forced to stop their operation due to the losses they have incurred concerning their supply chain
management. This has necessitated the development of greater understandings in regards to the
various factors that are currently affecting the food industry of the country (Bourlakis et al.,
2016). The essential focus will be on supply chain management. Only through better analysis of
the present situations can clear ideas be formed regarding the impact of the factors in the future.
Apart from companies like KFC there are also other food and groceries retailers like Sainsbury,
TESCO and Asda. Moreover, the rapid emergence of other European companies like Aldi and
Lidl has created a tough situation concerning competition in the food and food retail industry
(Brandenburg et al., 2014). It will be very important to know how the new companies have been
able to gain essentially larger shares of the market in very less time. Thus, there is a genuine
need to find out the essential aspects of the logistics functions that govern the operational
feasibility of some businesses in the country. At the same time it becomes much important to
know where the other businesses are going wrong and how can the industry change the prevalent
situations that seem to be affecting the market with regards to the supply chain functions
(O’Rourke, 2014). The various essential factors need to be systematically analyzed for the better
wholesome understanding of issues related to supply chain functions of the companies operating
in the UK food industry.
• Research Question
What are the Supply chain management sourcing issues that are faced by uk food retail industry
and what are the companies doing as a solution to the issues? Also an example from the industry
is required