Influence Of Environmental And Social Collaboration With Suppliers In The Performance Of Food Supply Chain

The role of suppliers for ensuring the supply of quality, safe and traceable raw materials for the food industry is critical. However due to the scarcity and contamination of natural resources, pressures on climate change and public attention of the working conditions in this industry, the responsibility of suppliers has been extended to environmental and social issues. In this context, the purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of environmental and social collaboration with suppliers in the performance of the food supply chain by exploring the current practices that follow the world?s largest public food processing companies. In order to measure supplier collaboration, 64 sustainability reports were analyzed during the period 2012-2014. As for the performance of food supply chain, 78 annual reports were analyzed for the same period. After collecting all data, OLS estimation method was used for hypothesis testing. The main findings reveal that outcomes from environmental practices and collaborative programs with suppliers could help to reduce the cash conversion cycle and increase the gross margin in the food industry. It was also observed that audit and control activities for assessing environmental and social performance of suppliers have an influence to improve the operational performance of food supply chain. Although this paper was limited to the availability of information published by the companies, it fills the research gap about analyzing the effect of supplier collaboration in one of the industries barely studied. In addition it provides important implications and recommendation for managers in the food supply chain.