What companies have the top 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 at the end of 2013, picking up the work in the annual PoweRankings report that was started many years ago by Cannondale Associates, which Kantar later acquired.

The full report 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 those 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 participate, with some 400 respondents in total across both groups.

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 areas.

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.

Procter & Gamble had enjoyed a long run in the top spot for supply chain, but its once big lead had been slipping in recent years. For example, P&G was picked as having one of the top three supply chains by 28.4% of respondents in the 2012 report - down a significant 6.9 percentage points from the 2011 results.

P&G's total fell again this year, to 26%, while General Mills took over the top spot after surging from a 27.2% score in 2012 to a strong 30.5% rating in this latest survey. P&G was number 2.

Nestle finished in third place with a score of 22.2%, up from 21.4% in 2012.

The rest of the top 10 for this year's survey are shown in the graphic below. We'll note that showing Kraft Foods Group as not being ranked in 2012 is a bit misleading, as it reflects the fact that Kraft had split itself into two companies, Kraft Foods Group and Mondelez. The pre-split Kraft was ranked number 3 in 2012.

Top CPG Supply Chains for 2013

Source: Kantar Retail

Campbell Soup moved into the top 10 this year, replacing Coca-Cola and Clorox, which both fell off.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)