Strategic Actions for a Sustainable Internationalization of Agri-Food Supply Chains: The Case of the Dairy Industries from Brazil and Germany

Caetano Beber, Greta Langer and Johannes Meyer
Additional contact information
Greta Langer: Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany
Johannes Meyer: Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, University of Goettingen, 37073 Goettingen, Germany

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: While facing a growing domestic demand of milk and milk products, the Brazilian dairy industry is far behind in terms of competitiveness and sustainability when compared to other national agricultural sectors. Nonetheless, in Germany the leading dairy companies mainly pushed by a saturated domestic market, EU agriculture policy oriented to liberalization of markets, and increasing political and social demands are looking at markets beyond EU. In the context of the increasing globalization of agricultural supply chains, the issue of sustainability gains particular importance in companies’ internationalization strategies. By using expert interviews, this paper investigates strategies for integrating Brazilian and German dairy supply chains and how both sides can benefit from this situation also in terms of sustainability. The analyses show that problems of the industries in both countries basically complement each other at different levels and positive synergies for both sides exist when it comes to sustainable issues, positioning themselves competitively for the future and creating a good position for conquering market shares in a globally growing milk market. This paper proposes an approach for the challenges of such integration, as well as viable solutions to sustainability issues.

Keywords: dairy value chain; dairy industry; internationalization strategies; sustainable internationalization; German dairy supply chain; Brazilian dairy supply chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10873/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/19/10873/ (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Strategic Actions for a Sustainable Internationalization of Agri-Food Supply Chains: The Case of the Dairy Industries from Brazil and Germany (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:19:p:10873-:d:647105

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().