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What's in a name?

We talk about compressing Supply Chains and channel strategies. Farmers talk about Community Supported Agriculture. Are they the same thing?

Steve Geary
By Steve GearyMay 21, 2020
Steve Geary

Steve Geary is adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee's Haaslam College of Business and is a lecturer at The Gordon Institute at Tufts University. He is the president of the Supply Chain Visions family of companies, consultancies that work across the government sector. Steve is a contributing editor at DC Velocity, and editor-at-large for CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.

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NPR’s Morning Edition talked about supply chains today. That sure caught my attention. I talk about supply chains all the time, but that is not a topic I expect to hear about on public radio, especially in the morning national news broadcast.

NPR explored a market shift associated with a boom in “Community Supported Agriculture.”  That’s the scholarly name for “Farm to Table” networks. The market is moving. There is a growing pool of customers who want fewer hands touching their fresh foods before they hit the kitchen table. (A text version of the story is here.)

According to NPR, some Farm to Table growers are seeing increases of 400%.

Structurally, that is a huge shift. Price is less dominant in the buying decision. In this enlightened view, compressed to be value added. The service bundle – the total value proposition, not the price of the tomato – is the decision driver.

The government is also getting involved. Rather than letting products originally destined for wholesale markets rot due to market disruption, they are contracting with local farmers to deliver fresh produce to food banks.

This is adaptive logistics at its best. Private sector, governments, and customers harmonizing a market.

You can call it Community Supported Agriculture. You can call it Farm to Table. I’m a logistician, so I call it first class supply chain risk management.

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