FROM FEED TO CHECKOUT DESK

摘要

It is sometimes called the Supply Chain - which starts when the feed goes into the livestock farmers store and ends with the shopper at the supermarket till. But how have the various part of the chain linking feed manufacturers with consumers of livestock products fared during the last thirty-six months which have seen, firstly, the explosion of soft commodity prices and, secondly, the onset of the credit crunch? Signs are that the rise in retail food prices is beginning to tail off with some currentprices in the shops at levels either unchanged or lower than a year ago. Simultaneously compounders, who were faced with soaring raw material costs and the need to raise product prices, are now starting to adjust the latter to the prices currently beingreceived by farmers so that farmgate prices for livestock products assume a more 'normal' relationship to the price of feed. But how normal is 'normal'? Has the Supply Chain moved to a new equilibrium level of prices? Roger Dean has been digging aroundin the statistics to find out - and concludes that it is too early to come to a definite conclusion.