Main sources of tea and locations of raw material supply Supply chain
According to (Wilhelm et al. 2016), in the supply chain, there are different participants, thus the need for sustainability in supply chain management. There is a need to understand different multi-tiers in the supply chain. According to their study, the involvement of first-tier suppliers is important in achieving sustainability compliance. Companies should incentivize each participant’s role separately to reduce information symmetries, especially at the second-tier agency. Companies involved in any business make choices independently and jointly when deciding the patterns of the supply chain to take. (Hugos, 2018) identified basic pattern that companies can consider, which includes; – production-inventory-location-transportation-information.
1.2 Major products, customers and market
Tea can be processed to produce various products, which include black tea, green tea, oolong tea, coffee, water, salt, lentils, spices, ready-to-eat, sweetener, among others. (Jiang, 2019), research on improvement of competitive advantage on tea industries infamous town, the research indicated several tea products were black tea, moving, and Taiping, among others. Jiang noted that Huangshan city had serious shorting comings when it comes to the quality and quantity of tea produced and low developments in both local sales and exports. Therefore, to promote development, local companies should major in supply chain development from their countries of operation. Research by (Sharangi et al. 2014) shows tea products include black tea, green tea, and oolong tea, and their global consumption is 78%, 20%, and 2%, respectively, due to their health benefits.
Therefore, according to (Suzuki et al. 2016), tea products are grouped according to the production method. And have huge benefits to human health, which make different products be preferred or consumed more in different parts of the world as shown below;-
- Black tea (fully fermented or post-fermented)- mainly consumed in Western countries, India and other parts of the world
- Green tea (unfermented)- widely consumed in China and Japan
- Oolong tea (half-fermented) – used in China
Major tea manufacturer is;-
- Unilever
- Tata Global beverages
- Twinings,
- Taetea group
- Tieguanyin Ground, among others.
Also, according to global tea industry analysis research by (Hajra 2017), the above companies were leading supplier in the worldwide market.