Competitive food manufacturing: Evidence from the 1994 competitive manufacturing survey

Abstract

Despite accounting for 10% of the US gross domestic product from manufacturing in 1991, the US food manufacturing industry has been, for the most part, neglected in the strategic management literature. In this article we use a survey of over 225 food manufacturing firms to explore the relationship between manufacturing strategy and competitiveness in this important-industry. Specifically, we examine the relationship between manufacturing objectives, manufacturing policy adoption rates, manufacturing performance, and financial performance. Our results suggest that many food manufacturing firms fail to fully exploit manufacturing's potential contributions to customer satisfaction and that they frequently adopt manufacturing policies that have little or no effect on manufacturing performance. Firms can use the results presented in this article to benchmark their performance relative to the best firms in the industry. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.