Determining Criteria for Choosing Packages in the British Foodservice Supply Chain
(2003)Packaging Logistics
- Abstract
- The proportion of meals the Europeans eat outside their home steadily increases. We take coffee breaks at work, eat lunch in the office canteen, we order take-away, we go to cafés or pubs to spend time with our friends, we easily grab a snack in vending machines and we eat on airplanes and trains to just mention a few examples. Eating out is nowadays more of an everyday activity than a luxury event.
Looking at the longer terms, consumers? willingness to eat out of their home has increased. Higher disposable incomes, new lifestyles, greater choice of eating-out and lower price per meal are factors that have contributed to this.
As an inherent consequence of the increased competition in the foodservice market, actors in the foodservice... (More) - The proportion of meals the Europeans eat outside their home steadily increases. We take coffee breaks at work, eat lunch in the office canteen, we order take-away, we go to cafés or pubs to spend time with our friends, we easily grab a snack in vending machines and we eat on airplanes and trains to just mention a few examples. Eating out is nowadays more of an everyday activity than a luxury event.
Looking at the longer terms, consumers? willingness to eat out of their home has increased. Higher disposable incomes, new lifestyles, greater choice of eating-out and lower price per meal are factors that have contributed to this.
As an inherent consequence of the increased competition in the foodservice market, actors in the foodservice market pay more and more attention to cash flow management. Cost awareness brings up questions about logistics optimisation, for example through minimising of storage levels and portion control. Another consequence of the increased cost awareness is the tendency in foodservice to hire lower skilled people.
Someway or the other, when competition increases new ways to add value to customers has to be found. The package is one way to add more value to a product . The package can make the value chain more efficient .
There is an opportunity for packaging suppliers to identify downstream needs and offer appropriate packaging solutions . Furthermore, improvements and new innovations in packaging is a way for packaging suppliers to assist their customers in adjusting to the evolving foodservice industry.
My purpose with this study is to enlighten the meaning of an appropriate package solution. The overall objective is to find important packaging characteristics that will benefit the foodservice market.
This study is geographically limited to the UK foodservice market. The supply chain that I have studied is from food manufacturers via distributor to contract caterers.
It is a qualitative study of the foodservice market in the UK. The methods that I have used include literature study, interviews and observations. The interviews have been of an open kind and have been performed among representatives from different steps in the supply chain.
During my field studies I have discovered a number of characteristics and roles of packaging that are important for foodservice and I have also found out why they are important. I have also identified a number of general problem areas in foodservice and I have tried to see how packaging can be part of the solution for these problems. Furthermore I have investigated what forms the basis for decision of what kind of packaging to pack products in. Finally I have looked at how packaging issues are communicated in the supply chain.
This study indicates that there is a lack of understanding in foodservice for that packages can actually add value to products. At the same time respondents can give many examples of annoying packaging and of how packaging can be improved. One probable explanation is that packaging applications in foodservice originate from production and distribution demand rather than customer and consumer demand.
This study suggests that there is not much communication about packaging in foodservice. Considering that this study shows that packaging has big importance in foodservice and that packaging is integrated throughout the whole supply chain, there ought to be a need for more collaboration.
In short, this study shows that there are great opportunities for packaging to benefit foodservice. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1318722
- author
- Petterson, Maria
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2003
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Packages, Foodservice, Supply chain, Technological sciences, Teknik
- language
- English
- id
- 1318722
- date added to LUP
- 2008-06-03 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2010-02-01 14:40:03
@misc{1318722,
abstract = {{The proportion of meals the Europeans eat outside their home steadily increases. We take coffee breaks at work, eat lunch in the office canteen, we order take-away, we go to cafés or pubs to spend time with our friends, we easily grab a snack in vending machines and we eat on airplanes and trains to just mention a few examples. Eating out is nowadays more of an everyday activity than a luxury event.
Looking at the longer terms, consumers? willingness to eat out of their home has increased. Higher disposable incomes, new lifestyles, greater choice of eating-out and lower price per meal are factors that have contributed to this.
As an inherent consequence of the increased competition in the foodservice market, actors in the foodservice market pay more and more attention to cash flow management. Cost awareness brings up questions about logistics optimisation, for example through minimising of storage levels and portion control. Another consequence of the increased cost awareness is the tendency in foodservice to hire lower skilled people.
Someway or the other, when competition increases new ways to add value to customers has to be found. The package is one way to add more value to a product . The package can make the value chain more efficient .
There is an opportunity for packaging suppliers to identify downstream needs and offer appropriate packaging solutions . Furthermore, improvements and new innovations in packaging is a way for packaging suppliers to assist their customers in adjusting to the evolving foodservice industry.
My purpose with this study is to enlighten the meaning of an appropriate package solution. The overall objective is to find important packaging characteristics that will benefit the foodservice market.
This study is geographically limited to the UK foodservice market. The supply chain that I have studied is from food manufacturers via distributor to contract caterers.
It is a qualitative study of the foodservice market in the UK. The methods that I have used include literature study, interviews and observations. The interviews have been of an open kind and have been performed among representatives from different steps in the supply chain.
During my field studies I have discovered a number of characteristics and roles of packaging that are important for foodservice and I have also found out why they are important. I have also identified a number of general problem areas in foodservice and I have tried to see how packaging can be part of the solution for these problems. Furthermore I have investigated what forms the basis for decision of what kind of packaging to pack products in. Finally I have looked at how packaging issues are communicated in the supply chain.
This study indicates that there is a lack of understanding in foodservice for that packages can actually add value to products. At the same time respondents can give many examples of annoying packaging and of how packaging can be improved. One probable explanation is that packaging applications in foodservice originate from production and distribution demand rather than customer and consumer demand.
This study suggests that there is not much communication about packaging in foodservice. Considering that this study shows that packaging has big importance in foodservice and that packaging is integrated throughout the whole supply chain, there ought to be a need for more collaboration.
In short, this study shows that there are great opportunities for packaging to benefit foodservice.}},
author = {{Petterson, Maria}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Determining Criteria for Choosing Packages in the British Foodservice Supply Chain}},
year = {{2003}},
}