To a greater or lesser extent, retailers, processors and farmers all
espouse the benefits of closer collaboration with supply chain
partners. However they are typically reluctant to move entirely away
from the ëmarket tradingí approach - as they all appear to believe
that the ability to trade is critical to their profitability and that
somehow they can all come off best. As a result, short term
profitability may be gained at the expense of supply chain partners.
However, such a model negates cooperative process improvement
and its long term potential for quality, cost and delivery benefits that
are based on equitable relationships with partners.