Sustainable supply chain management and local businesses : a case study on food processing business in Hong Kong

Abstract

The food industry has been integrating sustainable practices along its supply chain management for decades. Different parties along the supply chain have been driven by the regulations, social demand and environmental awareness to adjust their operations. Local food processing businesses, rarely mentioned, in Hong Kong are underexplored upon their strengths and opportunities that sustainable supply chain management applied via internal operations and close interactions with suppliers and customers. This study aims to look into the issue from a macro view into micro view upon the situation in Hong Kong. Firstly, literature and overseas research were reviewed to investigate the opportunities and threats as well as generate the conceptual sustainability framework for local food processing businesses. Secondly, an in-depth case study was conducted with a local food processing company, aiming to explore their strengths and weaknesses. Results suggested that local food processing companies have rather passive environmental awareness on their internal operations, in turn, seldom do they explore the opportunities available due to the lack of accessibility to certain sustainability knowledge. Recommendations are made under SWOT analysis and SSCM and Dynamic Capabilities models, in addition with interviews with two local food retailers Kong Yeah and Ztore as well as questionnaires to customers to encourage co-evolvement of supply chain parties and introduction of relevant new stakeholders to sustain the environmental friendly practices within the food industry in Hong Kong. Limitations of this study are the undermined threats and weakness from other unalike local food processing businesses along with the fast changing food trends. Further and continuous research with large-scale data collection are needed to fully understand the sustainable practices within the food industry in Hong Kong.