As I explained recently on LinkedIn, there is a logic behind my two main topics of current procurement interest – Procurement with Purpose, and Bad Buying. They are both core drivers for senior management in most organisations, who want to avoid the risks around “bad buying” and pursue a sustainable and purposeful business agenda. So my view is that procurement has to show how it can contribute to both areas.
But increasingly, we see stories that directly cut across and are relevant to both topics. Last week, Supply Management featured the problems with food products, sometimes human and sometimes for animal feed, that are labelled and sold as “organic” but actually are nothing of the sort. “Organic” carries a price premium generally, hence the attraction to fraudsters, and the article reported that an “industry watchdog warned the US was becoming a “dumping ground” for imports of fraudulent organic produce”.
In my forthcoming Bad Buying book, there are a number of other similar case studies that cover food with dubious statements of provenance. For instance, Kiwi fruit from Italy were 'Frenchified' during transport so that they could be sold at a higher price, according to the French authorities, which does rather beg the question of how you “Frenchify” a Kiwi fruit! But even that wasn’t a joke really, as Italian fruit is treated with pesticides that aren’t allowed in France, which could have had allergy issues for consumers.
Fish species provide more examples of fraud and bad practice. Studies have shown that a remarkably high percentage of the fish bought in markets, shops and restaurants aren’t what they claim to be. How do you know you really are eating Sea Bass or Red Mullet, and not something cheaper? Or even maybe an endangered species that should not be sold at all?
Even when organisations and the procurement folk within them want to do the right thing in terms of buying food products, it isn’t always easy, particularly when faced with those who deliberately want to deceive. And questions of provenance are likely to become increasingly important in the next few years, with consumers wanting to know more about what they are buying and eating. Hence the increasing number of top restaurants that give you details of their suppliers and sources, virtually down to the date of the sheep’s birthday (personally, I find there can be “too much information” in some cases and I end up feeling I should just become vegetarian!)
Whilst provenance is a fundamentally tricky topic, customers and consumers are certainly likely to be intolerant of firms that aren’t taking all feasible steps in these areas. So this is another challenging but fascinating area in which contemporary “procurement with purpose” action can make a difference. And again, we see a positive factor for procurement and supply chain management, as these risk issues are often of great interest to the top of the organisation.