With extreme weather, cyber-attacks, tariffs, and geopolitical instability, supply chain resilience has been one of the hot topics of 2025. Now, researchers at Cranfield University have spiced things up even further by investigating the complex supply chain for one of Britain’s favourite dishes: chicken tikka masala.
Examining a ready meal version of the dinner time dish made by an SME in the UK, Cranfield’s researchers found that it involved sourcing over 20 ingredients and packaging materials with origins that can be traced back to 36 different countries, revealing an intricate supply chain with multiple potential points of failure.
Kate Jones, PhD student at Cranfield University and lead author on the study, said: “The last 12 months have shown the increasing threats to global supply chains, and as a result, more businesses are showing an increased focus on resilience. While most people understand that the biggest companies will have supply chains that are global, in many cases it’s the small and medium-sized businesses that make up most of those supply chains and can be the first to suffer when things go wrong if they’re a small part of the supplier’s overall business.
“SMEs are often handling hugely complex supply chains, even for things we’d think would be simple to produce such as a ready meal. With so many moving parts it’s vital they have alternatives in place for when things do get disrupted. That resilience is key to getting these products on our shelves, and ensuring consumers can continue to enjoy their curry without worry.”
Three areas crucial to resilient supply chains
The three areas examined in the research framework are:
- Robustness – trying to prevent problems.
- Recovery – how to come back after a problem.
- Reorientation – adapting and changing to improve in the future.
Using surveys, interviews and a workshop that involved people across three levels of the supply chain, researchers found that while robustness and recovery are prioritised, it’s reorientation that often receives less focus from SMEs, in part because it requires additional investment or capacity.
The researchers also reveal how, in this case study of the chicken tikka masala supply chain, power imbalances shape the ability to achieve resilience. SMEs can have limited buying power, especially when they’re dealing with far larger suppliers. During disruptions, these SMEs often find themselves disadvantaged, as large suppliers tend to favour their largest customers.
“What we’ve shown here is that while robustness and recovery are very important elements, it’s reorientation that can have the largest effect on the ability to avoid future supply chain issues,” continued Kate Jones. “But that’s where the smaller companies can struggle as it costs time, money and resource to change the way you do things - when simply getting things working again can be a big challenge.”
The full study, Improving food supply chain resilience: a case study of chicken tikka masala , co-authored by Dr Kenisha Garnett and Professor Paul Burgess, is published in Environmental Research Food Systems. Funding for this research was provided by the Quadram Institute through the BBSRC Seeding Award for Food Safety Research Network (FSRN), grant ref 43266FSRN-2023S26. This work forms part of a funded PhD project through the NERC funded Central England NERC Training Alliance (CENTA), reference 2754639, which is co-sponsored by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland.
