Food Miles - Food Miles in Business

Food Miles in Business

Business leaders such as Skidmore Professor James Kennelly have adopted food miles as a model for understanding inefficiency in a food supply chain. Wal-Mart, famously focused on cost-saving efficiency, was an early adopter of food miles as a profit-maximizing strategy. More recently, Wal-Mart has embraced the environmental benefits of supply chain efficiency as well. In 2006, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said, "The benefits of the strategy are undeniable, whether you look through the lens of greenhouse gas reduction or the lens of cost savings. What has become so obvious is that 'a green strategy' provides better value for our customers".

Wegman's, a 71-store chain across the northeast, has purchased local foods for over 20 years. In their case, the produce manager in each store controls the influx of local foods, the relationships with the local farms are not centrally controlled. A recent study led by Professor Miguel Gomez (Applied Economics and Management), at Cornell University and supported by the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future found that in many instances, the supermarket supply chain did much better in terms of food miles and fuel consumption for each pound compared to farmers markets. It suggests that selling local foods through supermarkets may be more economically viable and sustainable than through farmers markets.