Making both ends meet

Sustainability of global supply chains has gained increased attention during the last decade. Although the focus of sustainable development originally implied environmental efficient practices, this notion developed into an emphasis on sound business social practices. The phenomenon of addressing sustainability practices in supply chains lead to a research focus on developing country practices that also take the perspectives of developed countries into consideration. This study is unique, as the challenges from the supply side are rarely brought into perspective of the global supply chain. The phenomenon of sustainable supply chains has become even more relevant in terms of global agricultural supply chains, bearing in mind the current debates on food security, poverty and advancement of developing countries. Developing countries increasingly rely on the international distribution of raw mineral resources and agricultural food produce to stimulate economic growth. As developing country, South Africa is dependent on such exports. This thesis empirically investigates specific challenges in the table grape export chain. The main focus is directed at the export of table grapes to the European Union, especially the United Kingdom and Netherlands as main importing countries. Our research question is formulated as follows: ‘What specific capacities of the South African table grape supply chain would be essential for the improvement of global trade and would assure the sustainability of production in South Africa? ’ In the first part of this study we will focus on how supply chain actors perceive sustainability and their relationship to other actors in the chain. Furthermore, we report on challenges, problems and discrepancies found in the interrelationships between actors. The first chapter in this section, Chapter 2 is an exploratory study that gives an overview that defines challenges. The second chapter in this section, Chapter 3, relates to perceptions; it expands on factual information. Part two particularly discusses entrepreneurship and business management skills of growers on the supply side. The first chapter in this section studies the traditional entrepreneur. It evaluates which current management and farming skills and attitudes are in place, and the capacities that should be built to improve entrepreneurship on farms. The next chapter in this section, Chapter 5 takes the concept of empowerment on board. This chapter looks at success factors and capacities required to achieve empowerment. The third chapter in this section, Chapter 6, focuses on the environmental aspects and how changes can be made and capacity problems can be solved. In Part three, the demand side approaches are shown, which enabled us to obtain a holistic view of the export chain. The first chapter in this section, Chapter 7 discusses approaches applied by the demand side to bring sustainability change to the supply chain. Chapter 8 deals with the question how sustainability requirements are provided and the necessary information is exchanged as well as the implications for the supplying farmer. The last part consists of Chapter 9 and Chapter 10. Chapter 9, reports on the validations of our conclusions at the dissemination workshop and validating interviews with European retailers. The last Chapter, Chapter 10, brings our final conclusions, reflects back on the capacity problem and dimensions we defined in the first chapter and gives final perceptions of future developments in governance of sustainable supply chains.