An economical study of Food supply chain
--A case study of UK Milk supply chain
Introduction
As the basic element of human live hood and society, with the development of global economy, food supply system has attracted more concern than ever before. People buy food and consume them in their daily life, but as normal consumers, perhaps, no one have a serous consideration about how food have been produced and supplied before at the checkout. In economy term, the only thing that normal consumers have more concern with is the price. However, for those economist and governors the food supply chain itself and issues related to it are very important in several area- economic, social, and politic and etc. The aim of this paper is by using a case study which has been settled on UK milk supply chain, to show how economic analysis can help to inform policy makers and others regarding important issues affecting the food supply chain.
In order to make a clearly understanding of food supply chain in detail, the following figure will apply:
(Source: 321energy, by Norman Church April 2nd, 2005)
Basically, the figure described the four stages which make the food supply chain as a whole; from primary producer level to final consumers, the value has been added to the products through each stage, but also produced waste. This is the basic principle of the food supply chain.
UK Food Supply Chain
Before we get on with the detailed and specialised UK milk supply chain case study, we can have a look on the broader environment, In the UK, food supply chain plays a key role to country¡¯s economy, and the following data have proofed this fact:
? UK food retailing market was worth £103,800 million in 2001.
? Food manufacturing is the sin ...