Opportunist dealing in the UK pig meat supply chain: Trader mentalities and alternatives

Andrew Bowman, Julie Froud, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver and Karel Williams

Accounting Forum, 2013, vol. 37, issue 4, 300-314

Abstract: The scandal surrounding the presence of horsemeat in UK supermarket meat products has focused public attention on the problems of complex, fragmented food supply chains. Through a study of the UK's pig meat supply chain, this paper proposes a new framing of the problem in terms of opportunistic dealing adopted by the supermarkets in vertically disintegrated supply chains, where all actors attempt to pass the risks and costs onto somebody else. This outcome is the result of cultural practices and competences in buyer-led supermarket organizations where strong supermarket chains have the power to capture processor and producer margins. One consequence is that mass-market meat production and processing is close to unviable, as evidenced here by the analysis of the VION Food Group. However, there are mainstream alternatives to the retail-led dysfunctional supply chain. This paper presents an alternative integrated supply chain model using the case of Morrisons, the UK's fourth largest supermarket chain. If fragmented supply chains are not inevitable, the important issue explored in the conclusion is how the inadequacies of government policy, which understands the problem of the sector but is stuck with a competition-based mindset, obstruct the creation of a more sustainable supply chain.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1016/j.accfor.2013.07.001 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:taf:accfor:v:37:y:2013:i:4:p:300-314

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/racc20

DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2013.07.001

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting Forum is currently edited by Carol Tilt

More articles in Accounting Forum from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().