In case you haven’t heard, things are tough for supply chain managers and their teams.

“The pandemic has caused disruptions to our global supply chain on many levels, impacting transportation, reducing production and causing shortages in raw materials, products and workers, and it’s not just a one-time hit but with lingering effects,” said Weihong Guo assistant professor, Rutgers Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. “There is no doubt the supply chain has not fully recovered and is still struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels. During the holiday shopping season, we may have higher prices, longer waiting times and delayed deliveries. To strengthen the supply chain, we need the government, the private sector, the workforce and the academia to develop comprehensive solutions.”

As our American friends prepare for their Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, scholars are looking at how supply chain issues will affect what is on the table. US experts are cautioning would-be hoarders that while there will be some changes in prices and availability, there is no need to panic at the grocery store. The US food supply chain remains resilient.

“We are lucky to have a wide variety of raw agricultural products here in America — the breadbasket in the Midwest, or tropical climates in California and Florida where fruit can be grown,” said Wendy White, a nationally known food safety and supply chain expert who works with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership at Georgia Tech. “We’re not quite so dependent as other nations on foreign imports.”

While homegrown issues, like a drought in the US mid-west, are driving price increases of American produce, access to imported ingredients is more complex with improvements to be noticeable by June 2022.  

“The backlog of imports is being caused by labor shortages at the dock and lack of truck drivers for distribution. This backlog isn’t expected to return to normal until the middle of next year,” explained White.

Press release: https://www.newswise.com/articles/how-food-supply-issues-may-affect-your-thanksgiving-table

How much of our current supply chain issues are based in lack of access to or knowledge of new companies? One company does see the lack of trade shows as an issue.

The European exhibition market is expected to fully recover its pre-pandemic revenues of €16 billion by 2025. Kwayga, an Ireland-based tool specializing in European food and drinks procurement and logistics, says it is heading up the recovery by replicating trade show activities on its digital platform.

The European Food & Drinks market consists of over 12 million business ranging from local farm shops to the publicly listed multinationals. The Kwayga platform, which launched in March 2021, addresses challenges faced by B2B buyers and suppliers in finding new well-suited buyers or suppliers in international markets. This platform carries out the due diligence of supply-chain partners, connects the people within the company and facilitates communications in any language.

“We set out to solve day to day problems for businesses, creating a platform designed around trust and person to person relationships where businesses can discover each other, verify, connect and communicate internationally with certain privacy controls built in to ensure approaches and connections are the right ones,” says CEO Martin Fitzgerald. “What we didn’t expect was the feedback from so many of our members that we are the 24/7 x 365 Trade Show. I guess if we had set out to do that, we would have ended up with something very different; unlike so many others trying to replicate physical Trade Shows online, we come at it from a totally different approach, and thankfully it is working.”

For more information: https://www.kwayga.com/about-us

More tools are on the way to support all aspects of SCM.

Yesterday, Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company and provider of ESG research, ratings, and data, announced the launch of its Corporate Supply Chain ESG Solutions. The company says that leveraging Sustainalytics’ Corporate Supply Chain ESG Solutions, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and procurement professionals can evaluate the ESG risk management performance of their direct and indirect suppliers.

“Corporate executives are asking their procurement leaders to assess the ESG risks of their suppliers and partners to limit risk exposure and comply with increasing regulation in supply chain operations,” said Francesca Placa, manager of corporate solutions at Sustainalytics. “By providing a high-quality, standardized approach to assess company-level material ESG risks, Sustainalytics is well-positioned to help companies determine which suppliers may require the most in-depth evaluation on ESG issues.”

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sustainalytics-launches-supply-chain-esg-solutions-for-companies-301430325.html

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Kate Baggott is a former Managing Editor of B2BNN. Her technology and business journalism has appeared in the Technology Review, the Globe and Mail, Canada Computes, the Vancouver Sun and the Bay Street Bull. She is the author of the short story collections Love from Planet Wine Cooler and Dry Stories. Find links to recent articles by following her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-baggott-9a0306/

• B2B News for Wednesday, November 24, 2021: American Thanksgiving & Supply Chain Management, Kwayga Replicates Food & Drink Trade Shows, Sustainalytics Launches SCM Tool – November 24, 2021
• B2B News for Friday, November 19, 2021: New Fulfillment Solution, Construction Projects & Cost Management Issues, More Supply Chain Disruption – November 19, 2021
• B2B News for Tuesday, November 16, 2021: Motor City Renaissance, Gamification on a Diet, International Payments Get Easier – November 16, 2021