Miller Magazine Issue: 140 August 2021

56 COVER STORY MILLER / august 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major shock to food supply chains, as lockdowns and restrictions af- fecting labor supply, input provisioning, logistics, and distribution channels severely compromised poor con- sumers’ access to food. Yet it could have been worse; food systems have also shown resilience and innova- tive capacity to adjust. The new constraints led firms in a number of developing countries to innovate, scaling up the digitalization of food supply chains. This wide- spread adoption of e-commerce by large and small re- tailers and food service enterprises served an import- ant role in ensuring food access to consumers. Many businesses pivoted their operations, i.e., made fundamental shifts in businesses practices in response to the shocks or the new opportunities they saw. Here we discuss how e-commerce rose to meet the pan- demic challenge and argue that enabling its contin- ued development is an important approach to food system resilience in the face of future shocks. These developments have important implications for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), whose principal themes include building resilience of food systems to vulnerabilities, shocks, and stress; and promoting food security and improving access to nutritious foods. Such innovations were already underway before the pandemic, but have taken major flight since. E-com- merce in food retail and services more than doubled during 2020. This is happening worldwide, a global revolution in agrifood supply chains similar to the su- permarket revolution. Our recent publications identify several emerging fundamental changes in individual business and supply-chain operations through digital technologies: • E-commerce entering food value chains. During the 2010s, the food sector witnessed rapid growth of e-commerce firms that acquired, founded, or part- nered with brick-and-mortar retailers. Notable exam- ples include Amazon buying Whole Foods in the United States in 2017 and establishing Amazon Fresh stores in “The food system innovations we have described have been almost entirely mar- ket-driven and introduced by private sector actors, but their ability to innovate heavily depended on the availability of adequate basic infrastructure, mobile information and communications technology (ICT) networks, and regulation put in place by past public investment and policies. This type of public support is essential for market integration and lowering transaction costs along supply chains.” Digital innovations accelerated by COVID-19 are revolutionizing food systems Prof. Thomas Reardon Michigan State University Johan Swinnen Director General of IFPRI Rob Vos Director of IFPRI's Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division Prof. David Zilberman University of California