A commodity chain is a process used by firms to gather resources, transform them into goods or commodities and, finally, distribute them to consumers. It is a series of links connecting the many places of production and distribution and resulting in a commodity that is then exchanged on the world market. In short, it is the connected path from which a good travels from producers to consumers. Commodity chains can be unique depending on the product types or the types of markets. Different stages of a commodity chain can also involve different economic sectors or be handled by the same business.
A number of commentators have remarked that in the Internet age commodity chains are becoming increasingly more transparent. The Wikichains.com project has adopted the same wiki technology used by Wikipedia in order to help make commodity chains more transparent. "They are a network of labour and production processes whose end result is a finished commodity". William Jones Esq.
Famous quotes containing the words commodity and/or chain:
“There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don’t mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that’s the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“Oh yes, that’s right. They chain up wild animals. That’s all I am, an animal.”
—John Elder [Anthony Hinds], British screenwriter, and Terence Fisher. Leon (Oliver Reed)