Profiling the future demands of the UK food supply chain

The UK food industry faces significant challenges to remain competitive. With Brexit on the horizon, companies can no longer rely on a low labour cost workforce to maintain low production costs. Industry 4.0 is seen as a technology driven paradigm that aims to significantly improve productivity and performance of a company whilst ensuring better demand/supply chain connectivity. However, there is evidence to suggest that the UK food industry has not yet embraced this new manufacturing paradigm. Through an exploratory survey of 36 food companies (8 large and 28 small) this paper discusses the key issues around whether these companies are prepared for the implementation of I.E 4.0. The discussion provided along with the primary survey data suggests that the larger food companies are starting to focus on I.E 4.0. However, greater awareness of the methods of implementation is needed if companies are able to embed such systems.