Exploring food retail logistics internationalisation in South East Asia

Paper originally presented at the 20th Annual Logistics Research Network Conference, 9th to 11th Sept 2015, Derby. Introduction: Two recent market research reports noted UK consumers enjoy lower food prices than other Western economies. There are many reasons for this but one is due to the UK’s world-leading food retail logistics systems. However, as highly-efficient UK and other Western grocery retailers have entered developing markets, such as South East (SE) Asia, this expertise has not necessarily been successful. Western systems are usually expected to contribute to retailing internationalisation through ‘follow-sourcing’ where retailers entering new markets will encourage existing suppliers to follow them into it, concentrating on procurement modernisation, the establishment of centralised distribution, and the use of third-party logistics (3PL) service providers