Success factors in the fresh produce supply chain: insights from the UK

Presents recent evidence of supply chain developments in the UK fresh produce industry, based on interviews with chief executives from some of the country’s most successful suppliers. A number of success factors were evident, to varying degrees, in all of the companies interviewed. These included: continuous investment (despite increasingly tight margins), good staff (to drive the process of innovation and develop good trading relationships with key customers), volume growth (to fund the necessary investments and provide a degree of confidence in the future), improvement of measurement and control of costs (in the pursuit of further gains in efficiency), and innovation (not just the product offer but also the level of service and the way of doing business with key customers).