First Movers Coalition for Food 2026

In practice, a company’s level of dependency determines whether on-farm robustness or sourcing flexibility should be prioritized in its resilience strategy – and therefore which strategic pathway, spec- anchored or decoupled, is best suited to reconcile the tensions described above (see Figure 4). Spec-anchored sourcing to support on-farm robustness Higher dependency reflects a reality in which a limited number of suppliers can meet product expectations for price, quality and availability. This normally applies to highly-perishable commodities or those found within highly concentrated growing regions. Examples include: –Fresh milk, that needs to be sourced daily and locally. –Hazelnuts, with roughly 70% of global production coming from Turkey.54 –Cocoa, with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana accounting for nearly two-thirds of global production.55 For higher-dependency commodities, a buyer’s resilience strategy should prioritize on-farm robustness of suppliers, because there is limited room for switching suppliers without significant additional cost or product reformulation. As a result, the optimal strategic sourcing pathway is spec-anchored, ensuring buyers can maximize returns from on-the- ground investments via long-term commitments. Put another way, the “payback” for buyers supporting producers’ transition towards more sustainable practices is the ability to lock-in spec-anchored sourcing from suppliers who can deliver to the quality required, while enhancing the resilience of specific priority suppliers. Decoupled sourcing to support transition in lower-dependency chains Some commodities can be sourced from many suppliers across multiple regions that can all meet cost, quality and availability requirements. Commodities in this category often do not allow for easy farm-level traceability, due to aggregation, mixing or commodity spot-trading. Examples include: –Soy, grown across diverse regions (e.g. South America, US, China, India) offering year-round availability that allows buyers to shift sourcing in response to cost or supply considerations. –Wheat for boxed cereals, widely produced with a diversified supply base and long storage life. –White rice, produced across multiple growing areas in the same region (e.g. South East Asia, including Thailand, Viet Nam and Cambodia) with similar quality and availability levels. In this situation of lower dependency, a buyer’s resilience strategy should prioritize sourcing flexibility rather than investments in on-farm robustness, which would be cost-inefficient across many suppliers. To ensure sustainability, buyers can adopt a decoupled sourcing pathway, by funding supply- shed programmes and partnerships to support transition. This allows companies to contribute to system-wide improvements in key supply-sheds while retaining flexibility to shift sourcing regions as conditions change. In this case, it is important to build a strong data foundation and ensure visibility of sustainability outcomes across suppliers and regions to enable informed switching.