Another Essential Worker In The Food Industry: The Buyer

Four months into a new decade and our enthusiastic support for building on the optimism of the past and continuing business growth has been decimated. The food world has come to a complete standstill as a mysterious new menace grabs global attention and our plans now focus on personally getting through each day without coronavirus symptoms, keeping our kitchens and medicine cabinets stocked, and prioritizing essentials for our families.

The very meaning of “essential” has achieved national as well as personal attention. Starting with our own health and wellness, and with what we eat, everyone is learning more about truly essential needs at home and important essential services that make daily survival possible.

Beyond health professionals and first responders, the list of heroes continues to grow: driving a bus, making a pizza, collecting trash, and now, butchering carcasses in a meat plant have been added to our understanding of essential workers. After all, when the president of the United States signs an executive order and invokes the Defense Production Act to keep meat processing facilities open, you know that jobs in a meat plant are definitely essential.

With everything that’s been reported on the volatility of the food supply chain recently, it was no surprise that the chairman of Tyson Foods just declared that “the food supply chain is breaking.” It took a lot of courage to admit that, especially when there is a terrified silence when we ask what everyone within the food supply chain is going to do about it. Forcing people to work in dangerous conditions at low salaried jobs is a non-starter. Placing plastic partitions between elbow-to-elbow jobs in food processing operations will not solve long-term challenges.

Aside from processing plant safety, we’re also missing another critical element of the supply chain: buyers. As much as the food supply chain starts on the farms where food is harvested and ends on the retailer shelf or online catalog, it has a longer journey than most consumers may understand. I believe it makes serious sense to examine each link in the entire supply chain in order to build sustainable answers and acknowledge what is really essential to keep us fed.

We also need to include the entire chain in order to enable a full transformation that solves for lack of supply and reduction of food waste. Yes, our new and extremely diverse consumer base has driven new patterns of consumption and the need for a wider range of assortment of products. But it’s the buyer, the merchandiser, the category manager – call them whatever you want – who’s the subject matter expert. It’s buyers that can build impactful solutions and keep the supply chain functioning seamlessly.

As the immediate need to fill demand stretches across multiple product categories, today’s buyers are multitasking at incredible speeds. Being the gatekeeper to consumers and the agents of the food manufacturer, today’s priorities to keep shelves stocked requires comprehensive intelligence as well as solid instincts about loyal customers. Familiarity with daily consumer purchasing data, on-hand inventory levels, incoming order fill rates, future order processing, and the economics of promotions, are only a few of the tasks associated with the buyers’ daily grind.

Getting products on the shelves and keeping those shelves full is today’s battle cry. However, the need to profitably manage assortment and procure products that consumers crave has been a struggle. It is the professional buyer that, at the end of the day, determines whether you as a consumer will get access to private-label peanut butter, organic refried beans, gluten-free pasta, or other favorite products. What you end up buying is what they offer as options. Today that may mean the difference between exactly what you want and an untried replacement for your particular preference.

Given the circumstances that the pandemic has forced upon us, the traditional product category reviews, plan-o-gram resetting, new product evaluations and thoughtful analysis of consumer preferences has been put off. The degrees of engagement between buyers, their many suppliers, warehouse and distribution colleagues, and other professionals within grocery stores or foodservice operations are all impacted by constantly pivoting service requirements.

With retailers and foodservice operators shifting to new delivery processes and/or curbside pick-ups, and with demands placed on procurement by online ordering, buyers find themselves taking new roles within their respective operations. It’s clear that the buyer is now the essential link in the supply-chain. It is buyers that keep it all connected and moving in a cyclical fashion, feeding in fact-based data that balances supply to demand. But they need more resources, they need more planning tools, they need to be regularly consulted and they need more respect – across the supply chain.

With such depth of knowledge and reach across the entire food industry, who better to learn from when there is time to assess the pain points within the supply-chain? The gradual return of the consumer to new shopping and eating experiences can only be enhanced with what buyers know and have learned about demand in our new reality. So, add one more critical job to your list of essential services.  

I see food buyers as essential heroes in waiting. Let’s all agree and provide them the resources they need, build their cross-organizational collaboration, and stand by them as we start a revolution in the supply chain.