PepsiCo Moves into the Top Spot, Just Ahead of General Mills, as ConAgra is New to Top 10, Kimberly-Clark Out

What companies have the top supply chains in the food and consumer packaged goods sector?

Well as usual, the analysts at Kantar Retail once again tried to answer that question in late 2016, continuing the annual PoweRankings report that was started many years ago by Cannondale Associates, which Kantar later acquired. This marked the 20th edition of the annual report.

Supply Chain Digest Says... One retailer noted that "PepsiCo is partnering to drive efficiency through improved process and accuracies in order and delivery timing." What do you say? Click here to send us your comments Click here to see reader feedback

The full study covers a number of company performance measures for both consumer goods manufacturers and retailers, including such areas as brand power, marketing programs, sales teams, overall business fundamentals, and more. Supply chain management is one of the categories included in the survey.

The rankings for this year, as always, were developed through the interesting methodology of asking retailers to rate manufacturers on each of these categories, and manufacturers to rank retailers on a similar set of attributes. Most major CPG companies and retailers take part, with about 80 participant companies in each group.

Both manufacturers and retailers are from the consumer packaged goods, food and beverage areas. That means manufacturers in such categories as apparel/soft goods, electronics, hard goods, etc., are not included. Similarly, the participating retailers are drawn exclusively from sectors such as mass merchandise, traditional grocery, warehouse clubs, and drug store chains that focus on consumer packaged goods sales, and does not for example include department stores or most specialty retail areas. For the last couple of years, however, Amazon.com has been included in the retail group.

The scores represent the percentage of respondents that place a given manufacturer or retailer as having one of the top three supply chains in the industry.

This week, we will look at the consumer packaged goods results. Next week, we will publish the retail list.

There was a change at the top the top this year, with PepsiCo taking the number 1 position, up from third place in 2015, with 26.8% of retailers saying the company had one of the top three supply chains. That was just ahead of number 2 General Mills, last year's top rated supply chain, coming in with a score of 25.7% in 2016.

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As shown in the graphic below, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Kellogg, Kraft Heinz, Mondelez International, Nestle and ConAgra form the rest of the top 10.

Top 10 Consumer Goods Supply Chain 2016

Source: Kantar Retail

SCDigest notes Unilver was rated number 1 in the 2016 Gartner top 25 supply chains rankings last May.

The merged Kraft Heinz and ConAgra were new to the top 10 in 2016. Kimberly-Clark and the former Kraft Foods fell out of the top 10 rankings.

Kantar also publishes a few retailers comments along with the chart. This year, one retailer noted that "PepsiCo is partnering to drive efficiency through improved process and accuracies in order and
delivery timing."

Another commented that "General Mills makes sure the stores they work with are always well-supplied, and they look to take costs out of the system."

Finally, one retailer believes "Coca-Cola's supply folks are easy to do business with, ensure no out of
stocks, and can make pretty much anything happen upon request."

Next week, we will be back with the top-rated retail supply chains.

Any reaction to this year's top CPG supply chains? Which companies are missing - or overrated? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below, or email link above.

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