What companies have the top top supply chains in the retail sector associated with food and consumer packaged goods channels?

Well as usual, the analysts at Kantar Retail once again tried to answer that question at the end of 2013, picking up the work of 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 do not for example include department stores or most specialty retail 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 results for retailers. Last week, we published the list of top consumer packaged goods manufacturing supply chains (see Annual Kantar Retail Ranking of the Top Consumer Goods Supply Chains.)

This year, Procter & Gamble was knocked off the top spot it had enjoyed in the CPG supply chain for many years by General Mills, but no such drama in retail, as Walmart continued to dominate the rankings for the umteenth consecutive year.

91.2% of manufacturer respondents put Walmart as having one of the top three retail supply chains, far outdistancing number 2 Target, with 31.4% of the vote, as shown in the graphic below.

Source: Kantar Retail

Amazon moved into the top 10 this year, though its food/CPG business is still rather small - but clearly bringing with it large ambitions. Dollar General fell out of the top 10.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)