Unexpected Events in Food Production are the New Normal? Results of an Industry Survey on Factors, Influencing Resilience in Food Production and Food Value Chains

In this paper, resilience is defined as the ability of food production entities to respond to, withstand and learn from short-term shocks and long-term stresses. Little ist known about the resilience in the food production sector. There also is a lack of information on which resilience measures companies see the greatest need for investment. Therefore, the focus of the explorative survey was to gain insight into current challenges and influences on the resilience of primary food producers and food processors, to identify topics for resilience management and related gaps. Representatives from 84 companies in food production in Germany responded on topics of resilience, including factors that influence product safety and availability of machinery, status of preparation for disruptive events and possible measures to improve resilience. The responses collected were analyzed descriptively. The results showed that most companies believe that they are not well prepared for disruptive events and that they require measures to improve their resilience. Most indicated that organizational factors such as the company’s production capacity or the availability of raw materials, among others, have a particular influence. Every second primary food producer plans to adapt or optimize machinery and equipment as a resilience improvement measure. While slightly more than half of the respondents from the food processing sector implement measures for information procurement and training, or intend to implement such measures in the future. This area is seen as the most important aspect for improving resilience by respondents from primary food production. Overall, it also became clear that there is a need for tools to assess and evaluate resilience.