Post-Pandemic Food Supply

Can technology help with food production after the pandemic is over?

The five key recommendations defined in the research are:

1. Implement transparency and traceability – Consumers, customers, processors and manufacturers increasingly require transparency, and companies need the ability to see real-time information about their supply chains.
2. Increase collaboration – To meet evolving consumer needs for nutrition, affordability, sustainability and transparency, food companies need to collaborate between buyers and suppliers to measure and manage risk.
3. Build last-mile agility – A balance of efficiency with robustness must exist in the food supply chain to plan for systemic disruption. Manufacturers should consider inventory holding arrangements with adjacent chain participants to build disruption buffers.
4. Reexamine customer segmentation – Consumers are changing the way they shop, the products they purchase and the attributes they prioritize. Companies need to focus on key purchase criteria, shopping behavior and generational differences.
5. Invest in the future – Changes in labor availability and consumer demands offer enormous opportunities for investment, and Indiana has the infrastructure, knowledge and skilled labor to compete for venture capital funding in food and agriculture.