Food Security and Supply Chain Management with Chris Mejía Argueta

Host:
Welcome to MIT supply chain frontiers, where we discover the future of global supply chain education, research, and innovation brought to you by the MIT center for transportation and logistics. Today, we'd like to recognize the world food program on their recent Nobel peace prize for their work in alleviating hunger on the topic of food security, MITC TLS. Ken Cottrell speaks with Chris. Mejia the director of the MIT food and retail operations lab about food deserts and some of the innovative projects that leverage supply chains to combat food insecurity. Take it away. Ken,

Chris:
Thank you, Ken. Thank you very much for your invitation.

Ken:
Maybe you could describe food deserts and clarify the terms we use in association with food deserts. They, they finish and given by the USDA or the department of agriculture is that these areas are areas in which it's difficult to buy affordable and good quality, fresh food due to low income and low access. Basically you have like three big components, right? So you have accessibility that basically is geographic accessibility to what you want to buy, uh, availability that is that somebody is offering these in the store or in the shelves. Um, third, um, the affordability that you have in a budget to buy what you want. So what is low income for the USDA implies poverty rates over 20% or median family income, less than 80% of the statewide or the metropolitan areas, uh, medium family income.

Chris:
And with regards to low access, that one is easier to understand is whenever households are farther than a half a mile or one mile from a source of fresh, nutritious food, like a grocery store or a supermarket. So do you think that the COVID-19 pandemic has made this problem worse? Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm for doing that. I need to admit that yes, the quantity of people suffering chronic Conger has increased in around 50 million people in the world. You've you've given us a great description of the problem. What potential solutions are you focusing on? I have been working with colleagues from tops university and also the city of Somerville in Somerville. What we did was to understand if a double up coupon system will help, you know, is basically to allow people who are receiving the benefits of snap or, or their programs like week to receive more rewards or coupons, if they are spending their money in food that is nutritious food like fruits and vegetables, right?

Chris:
That's basically what we're doing is motivating the consumption, pushing people to buy products that are more nutritious for them, despite that people will buy the product, they won't necessarily eat those products. And unfortunately, these won't cause like the benefit that we are expecting on their nutrition, right? So we move into more, let's say logistics, alike systems like ride sharing systems, you know, with ride sharing systems that will let's say, get you from your home to the nearest or the closest grocery store or supermarket for you to buy your groceries there, your fruits, vegetables, and other nutritious food. But one of the issues that it will cause is that it's eroding local economy, even the pandemic, the other ones who are suffering the most besides the vulnerable population, segments are also these micro and small firms owner, right? So the third one is related to a grocery delivery model.

Chris:
So we are actually looking for some type of work is trader. And I started that may be interested on developing this folder, you know, last but not list is the, what we call the baggy box model that is different to the CSA or the community support agriculture, because this is handpick products by directly by the farmers. Um, these will be delivered not directly to the consumer, but the two let's say conveniently located pickup points like neighborhood markets, Nan restores, or mom and pop stores. And actually the idea is to create like very food balance boxes at an affordable price. So is that we met up with population segments can have access to those. Um, they need to, you know, just walk a little bit to pick them up instead of us doing all the logistics challenge of transporting them to the doorsteps of the end consumers or the house schools.

Ken:
Yeah. You know, as you, as you're describing these many variables, um, it becomes clear doesn't it? That supply chain management is absolutely critical to the efficiency of these food access models. Um, maybe you could just talk a little bit more about the role of supply chain management, um, in, in these solutions.

Chris:
So basically I think that the role of supply chain management logistics sees a key here, because if you think about how most of the supply chain systems have been configured, most of them are, are actually pushing Bentley based, right? So you start at some point and you start pushing all that inventory to the next, let's say a stakeholder. So you're starting the growers or the farmers, and you push this to the processing company or processing plant then to the DC of that plan then to the distributor, to the wholesaler or many distributors in between then to the retailers and then to the end consumer. So the only part where you are like motivating the pool, the strategy is between the retailer and the end consumer or the household, right? So given the high fragmentation that exists in both sides, in the streams, that producers side, and also the retailer side, especially in emerging markets or the food deserts, because actually in food deserts, you will observe a bigger variety of retailers on neighborhood markets as well.

Chris:
So these optimization let's call, it will create plenty of opportunities. And if we mix that with the multiple customer segments that we can create, well, that's, that's going to be very complex, right? So basically what we are trying to understand here is our way to reduce the large, the large number of intermediaries, and to start reducing as well or shortening the inventory levels. They hate rates of losses and waste that are observing between the supply chain that is benefiting you to have immediate access to them, to their produce items. You know, especially in supermarkets, the supermarkets have these high variety of products or large variety given that they have a back room where to pick up this, you know, but this is the, and this will cause plenty of, um, uh, food waste as well.

Ken:
And I go to the tattoo, there's a, um, an early stage project in India that might kind of point the way to how supply chain may become even more important to these food access models. Maybe you could just briefly describe that particular project.

Chris:
There is a public distribution system called the PDs that depends on the government and currently is only promoting the consumption and the availability and accessibility with rice. So the kilocalories are going to be great, but unfortunately other micronutrients are not going to be reasonably good or at least in the minimum requirements. So I'm talking about like seeing magnesium, vitamin a et cetera. So, so I just started developing a thesis in India, uh, to whether without the length of the student. And well, basically what we are trying to understand there is how to configure the food combinations inside that grain basket. Let's say to allow the Indians to also try and continue growing their micronutrients levels, but using different food combinations. And we also want to consider what has been harvested or grown in different districts as well to promote these local to local consumption. As I mentioned before, um, the best part of it is that these will be a promoted together with the government. So we aim also to hopefully bring some other policy-making and potential regulations out of this.

Ken:
Interesting. So you're working with the government now, the government obviously is a very important partner in all this, but just generally speaking, Chris, what kind of partners are you looking for in these various research projects?

Chris:
The mission of the lab is to create effective supply chain strategies to match these dynamic consumption behavior, to the different distribution channels, to ensure product accessibility, availability, and affordability. And what I have seen in different countries is that there is plenty of capacity idle capacity, and probably if those people or those organizations have an idle capacity in terms of the fleet, in terms of type of infrastructure, et cetera, if all of us collaborate together, maybe we can do no go out quicker from the, from the current situation. Are you optimistic that, uh, you know, post pandemic, uh, some of these solutions will actually be implemented and will make a difference? The answer is yes. Uh, given the pilots that I have developed with several colleagues in Latin America and also here in the United States, considering the logistics component in detail, you know, so I'm really confident and optimistic that most of these solutions are implementable.

Chris:
I don't know if they are going to be successful. Otherwise I will be probably billionaire, right? If I probably think buddy's going to happen, but for sure this is going to help us tackling these big issue for sure. But if we're able to understand the role that each of these supply chain stakeholders might play on these huge, let's say I'm complex ecosystem. I think that we will be able to, you know, to, to work together and make the world a little bit better and also to combat these terrible, uh, refill figures that I mentioned to you, because just to wrap of currently the cost of the food, malnutrition is huge. It's actually around $5.5 trillion annually. So it's 7.5% of the world's GDP. Just to give you an idea. So on the, actually there are many people suffering, malnutrition around almost 3 billion people. So in different different, let's say types of food insecurity, moderate or severe. So we really need to change this, you know, and I really aim to, to well, to contribute a little bit, to make these changes, hopefully yes, well obviously it's a huge problem, a global problem, but it's very encouraging to hear that, you know, there are solutions in the pipeline and, um, I think it's also encouraging to hear that, you know, supply chain is going to have a central relatively in implementing these solutions. Um, Chris, I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Ken has been a pleasure.

Speaker 1:
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