Logistics Cooperation in the Food Aid Sector
This research project aims to investigate the logistical cooperation practices, and even forms of collective action, specific to the food aid sector in France.
Humanitarian or social context and issues
Logistics is inherently collaborative (Pipame, 2011). Since logistics operations aim to reach the right place at the best value for money and within optimal timeframes, cooperation between actors with diverse, even divergent, interests is necessary. This involves actors operating at different links in the supply chain (vertical cooperation) or actors occupying the same segment of the chain (horizontal cooperation) (Gonzalez-Feliu, Morana, 2010). These two types of cooperation involve different actors and entail varying levels of cooperative costs. Vertical cooperation streamlines the chain and creates cost synergies. Horizontal cooperation involves competing or complementary actors occupying the same segment of the chain, for example two producers who share vehicles or a storage facility. More complex, it requires a higher level of commitment and involves higher cooperation costs. It requires companies to review their usual processes and to pool resources or information that are sometimes strategic. This type of cooperation is identified in the literature as the most effective in terms of value creation, generating revenue synergies for the entire chain, but also as particularly difficult to implement (Roy, Landry, Beaulieu, 2006). Research also highlights the adverse effects of cooperation that has contributed to strengthening the power of one player in the chain or to creating an imbalance in the distribution of profits or costs. As a result, such cooperation remains rare among major retailers and long supply chains in general.
In this context, innovative logistical cooperation initiatives have recently been identified in the literature, particularly within food systems. In this framework, the main avenue for optimisation lies in collective solutions based on the pooling of resources and multi-stakeholder, multi-level cooperation models, i.e. with objectives that are not only economic but also socio-territorial (Vaillant et al., 2017; Raimbert, Raton, 2021; Raimbert, Raton, 2023). Within these food systems, the implementation of renewed cooperation can be both more attractive than for large companies and more complex: cooperation between similar actors with different organisational structures; greater involvement of local authorities at different administrative levels, adding a territorial development objective; cooperation between public/private actors with distinct, sometimes asymmetrical, skills, objectives and resources.
The identification of pooling projects within the food aid sector by the CRf’s LUPA team seems to illustrate similar mechanisms: an appetite for renewed cooperation and increasingly complex forms of cooperation (cooperation between associations with different operating models (ANSA, 2023); cooperation between public and private actors; increased involvement of local authorities). Similarly, in the food aid sector, logistics optimisation is not so much a means of generating value as a means of reducing logistics costs, which are rising steadily in an inflationary environment, and reducing the constraints of flow management that weigh on volunteers.
What are the practices of logistical cooperation, or even collective action, specific to the food aid sector?
Field of research and methodology
The survey is being conducted in France, with case studies at experimental sites in Marseille, Saint Lo, Bonneuil, etc. The aim is to conduct a survey to identify the diversity of existing cooperation experiences in the food aid sector, the terms of cooperation and the degree of pooling. Although collective action is increasingly favoured (Gonzalez-Feliu and Morana, 2010; Blanquart et al., 2015), it is not self-evident and is not always sustainable. In this context, case studies will be conducted to identify the specific objectives of cooperation, the level of cooperation, the achievement of objectives and the determinants of the robustness of cooperation. The aim is also to explore in particular the internal organisational and cultural changes brought about by the cooperation practices put in place, whether they involve pooling or sharing.
The scientific benefits of research for humanitarian and social actors
This could reduce logistical costs and flow management constraints on volunteers. At the scientific level, this research is important because it asks the following question: what are the determinants of the implementation of these coordination mechanisms and the factors that make them robust?
Biography
Gwenaëlle Raton is a research fellow at Gustave Eiffel University, working in the SPLOTT laboratory, which brings together researchers specialising in the study of freight transport. A geographer by training, her research focuses on food supply in cities, particularly the logistical challenges of short food supply chains. Using a social geography approach, she studies the mobility of those involved in urban food supply, the resulting urban/rural relationships and logistical cooperation.
Photo credit : Gwenaëlle Raton