A trade war and a pandemic: Disruption and resilience in the food bank supply chain

Abstract

Supply chain turbulence has become the new normal – and understanding supply chain resilience is essential for business-to-business firms. Dynamic capabilities theory provides the foundation for examining three literature gaps on supply chain resilience: resource reconfiguration during high impact disruptions; resilience across multiple supply chain levels; and resilience when government is involved. The food bank supply chain is examined during the turbulence of 2018–2020 from the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the trade war, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shifted agricultural commodities intended for export to food banks, creating scale and scope supply shocks, and this was followed by food demand and supply shocks from the pandemic. In-depth interviews were conducted with supply chain members, from farmers to processing firms to food banks. Qualitative analysis provides detailed perspectives on three stages of supply chain resilience: anticipating, adapting and responding, and recovery and learning. The trade war responses built resilience during the pandemic by leveraging dynamic capabilities and frugal innovation, and by building social capital and public/private partnerships. From the specific insights for food banks emerged broader insights for business-to-business firms, in the form of twelve propositions for building supply chain resilience to high impact disruptions.