Feeding the city: facing
the logistical challenge
The report Feeding London 2030 –
Facing the logistical challenge is a
landmark report published by the UK
Warehousing Association. It looks
at food and drink logistics in London
and provides a wake-up call for policy
makers, logistics practitioners, food
businesses and many other stakehol-
ders. ‘Business as usual’ is no longer
sustainable.
As our readers are aware, the mo-
dern food industry is highly complex
and global. Actors include food and
drink producers, manufacturers and
processors, food wholesalers and very vans and the emergence of dark
wholesale markets, grocery retailers, stores conflict with the latest thinking
hospitality and food service enterpri- on urban planning.
ses, and logistics service providers.
Andrew Morgan and the Global 78
researchers noted early on that
London in fact consists of more than
End-to-end supply chain awareness The continued growth of London’s and engagement are therefore es- hospitality and food service (HaFS) 300 neighbourhood clusters – a high
sential. sector brings its own challenges. One street and its environs, a business
is scale – while the grocery retail district, a transport hub, a shopping
Food security is a matter of increasing sector has some 12,500 site locations
international concern. Cities around within the M25, the catering sector
the world are coping with changing has five times that number. Another
lifestyles and eating patterns, diverse is location – food outlets in places
cultures, rising population levels, that are ideal for consumers but diffi-
stressed urban infrastructure, and the cult for deliveries.
need to protect the natural environ-
ment.
The report builds awareness, knowle-
mall or similar – and developed Ni-
ne-Step Cluster Analysis as a result.
Professor Alan Braithwaite of Cran-
field University observed “UKWA has
put feeding growing cities and food
dge and understanding of the key logistics on the map with this report.
Logistical challenges are many and facts, issues and directions needed The impacts of air quality and conges-
complex. Competing supply chains for effective future scenario develo- tion are not going to go away without
have been optimised in isolation. The pment and business planning. It will grocery retail sector is now facing is- help food manufacturers and proces- sues from the growth of convenience sors assess the current and future stores that logisticians had thought needs of their downstream partners and we must expect sweeping chan-
were settled in the 1970s. Home deli- in grocery retail and in catering. ges in the next 10 years.”
76 FDPP - www.fdpp.co.uk
radical change. The report offers a
methodology to unpack the challenge