A Study of State of Food Retail Supply Chain in Saudi Arabia: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Supply Chain Management has been playing a key role in food retail business in the developed countries by providing various segments of customers with quality products in a highly-efficient manner. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is following the lead of the developed countries through a rapid growth trend in super and hypermarkets. However, the role of supply chain management in proposing products which meet customers’ needs has not, up to now, been definitely-set, well-established or thoroughly investigated because of a lack of readily-made-available data. There is an obvious need for an appropriate framework for KSA’s food retail sector for the purpose of studying the roles and impacts of the various divisions of the supply-chain process. This paper describes a conceptual framework that researchers can utilize to further study the current conditions of supply-chain and its impacts on the food retail sector in Saudi Arabia.