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For years we viewed the supply chain as a linear relationship. Producers were at one end. Consumers were at the other end, Richard Schnieders, recently retired CEO of Sysco Corporation told participants at USDA’s annual Outlook Forum in Washington, D.C. Thursday.
“We viewed ourselves as the facilitator in the middle providing storage and transportation. We were the middleman. We see the supply chain evolving from a linear relationship to a continuous loop,” he says. “Consumers are providing a lot more input to, and demanding a lot more information from, every one else in the loop."
Walter Robb, co-president and chief operating office of Whole Foods Market agrees.
“Our customers want to know where and how food was produced and who grew it,” he says. “We see an entire new granulation in the information dissemination process coming.”
Markets are expanding
Robb points out that organic market sales volume rose 2.1% over the last 12 months in spite of the recession. Non-organic dollar volume fell 0.6% over the same time.
Consumers want more nutritional information on food. “That’s why we and others are providing Aggregate Nutrient Density Index scores on our labeling,” he says. “Kale has one of the highest ANDI scores of any food.
“Above all consumers want food to be safe,” he stresses.
Scale neutral
Consumers are also interested in flavor and texture. “That’s driving explosive growth we’ve seen for heritage turkeys at Thanksgiving,” says Robb.
Robb also sees rising interest in locally grown food.
Attempting to source more foods locally is challenging. Doing so may take innovative advances in infrastructure, such as mobile processing facilities. Small growers will need to rise to the challenge.
“I’m scale neutral,” he says. “We need to take bold steps to make agriculture more sustainable across all types and sizes of U.S. agricultural operations.”
Carbon footprint
Environmental issues will draw increasing attention. More Americans are becoming more concerned about the size of their own carbon footprints.
Intuitively you want to think that a farmer who lives 40 miles from New York and delivers eight boxes of vegetables to New York in a pick up truck is leaving a smaller environmental footprint than a grower who ships a 1,700-box semi-load from California to New York. “That’s not necessarily true,” points out Schnieders. | 
