Adapting Food Supply Chains to COVID – 19: A Study on Supermarket Resilience in Australia and Fiji

Abstract

The study presented in this paper is based on short research carried out as a part of academic fulfillment. The research is purely based on the analysis of secondary data (qualitatively and quantitatively). The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the world's food supply systems, revealing serious weaknesses and emphasizing the need for increased resilience—especially in the supermarket store industry. The impact of the pandemic on the supply chain resilience of supermarkets in Fiji, a developing nation that depends largely on imports, and Australia, a developed nation, is examined in this study. With a mixed-methods approach, the research evaluates supermarket tactics in both countries by combining quantitative data analysis and qualitative observations. Despite Australia’s and Fiji’s differences in size, economic structure, technological adaption capabilities and government capacity to facilitate disruptions, both countries faced the same impacts however the reaction and ability to mitigate those challenges were different. Even when the world has advanced towards technologies aiding in the smoothing of operations, there is still space for further advancement and testing the effectiveness of those implemented technologies in real-time. The research concludes by providing valuable insights and recommendations that supermarkets must adapt to in times of any future crisis.