Impact pathways: unravelling the hybrid food supply chain – identifying the relationships and processes to drive change

Purpose – This paper explores the nature and operations of the supply chain that serves disadvantaged groups. With the increasing reliance on supplementary food provision through food aid, we seek to emphasise efficiency and sustainability in these supply chains.

Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interview data from 32 senior managers and experts from both commercial and food aid supply chains were abductively analysed to develop a relationship-based map of the food chains that serve disadvantaged groups.

Findings – Disadvantaged groups are served by a hybrid food supply chain. It is an interconnected supply chain bringing together the commercial and the food aid supply chains. This chain is unsurprisingly plagued with various challenges, the most critical of which are limited expertise and resources, operational inefficiencies, prohibitive logistics costs and a severe lack of collaboration.

Originality/value – Our study identifies the currently limited role of logistics companies in surplus food redistribution and highlights future pathways. Additionally, we present useful actionable propositions for managers, practitioners and policy makers.