Valor da relação entre agentes da cadeia de alimentos em projetos de desenvolvimento de produtos voltados à saúde e bem-estar

Abstract

Overweight and the obesity epidemic have spread out over the past decade bringing up public health concerns. Processed food products are partially blamed for it. To change the growing numbers, however, consumers’ lifestyle changes are also crucial. Their concerns about health and wellness have indeed been a trend over the last years, and health and wellness focused food products – such as functional foods (FF) – have an important role in this trend. From the food industry’s perspective, the development of new products is a source of innovation, differentiation and added-value. By the establishment of dyadic relationships such as buyer-supplier, organizations also enable the combination of skills, sharing costs and risks and investment in research and New Product Development (NPD). Value chain analysis focuses specifically on business-to-business, while it is acknowledged that there is no added value if this is not perceived by consumers. In this context, a collaborative project arises as a viable and real alternative to NPD. However, due to a growing disconnection between consumers and industry, there are concerns about how to create value in NPD projects. Most innovative ideas do not become successful products, demonstrating the need to reflect on the experiences of collaborative NPD projects. In this context, this study aims to explore how the supply chain agents interact with each other to create relationship value. In addition, it is also motivated by the interest in looking beyond the classical buyer-supplier relationship to understand the role of consumers into NPD, suggesting that a closer relationship among all supply chain agents is essential to create value for them. Multiple theoretical perspectives are integrated to explain the relevance of a closer relationship in the context of food for health and wellness in emerging countries. Both inductive-qualitative and deductive-quantitative methodologies are combined to achieve this goal. Multiple case studies have been carried out with Brazilian dairy industries and. a survey with consumers has also been conducted. Data has been analysed together with a benchmark from Scandinavia. Results show the existence of collaborative relationships between food companies, suppliers and occasionally research centres. Relationship value varies according to the agent, and can be categorized as tangible (i.e. financial resources) and intangible (i.e. trust). Consumers are not interested in co-creation initiatives with the food industry, although a web-based platform appears as an inexpensive opportunity to create value for the consumer and improve companies’ performance. Finally, this study aimed to explore the interface between marketing and operations management research areas, but further research can still be conducted to continue deepening knowledge available in the field.