SAOS | What We Do - Supply Chain Development

About us

Scotland’s experts on farmer co-ops and food industry collaboration, we work with food and farming businesses to make them more profitable, competitive, and sustainable - #workingtogether to shape the future, today.

What we do

All our work helps facilitate farmers and food and drink businesses to work together effectively. Over the years we've expanded and developed subsidiary businesses - getting the right people together and making innovative advancements - to help benefit food, farming and rural Scotland.

Events & Training

Developing staff capability is one of the most effective ways to improve a co-op’s performance. Check out our events and training programme - most of which are open to non co-op members too.

Coming soon!

Membership

As a development organisation, owned by our members, we provide a range of specialist services not available elsewhere, to assist them in developing their people and their businesses. Get in touch to find out how we can help you.

What's New

See below for all the latest news, views and updates from us here at SAOS. Find all our latest videos on YouTube at: SAOS - working together in food and farming

Quarterly Newsletters

Annual reports

Working across all food and drink industry sectors, we address emerging issues and opportunities, identifying practical solutions to highly complex supply chain challenges. We focus on understanding the market opportunity and the barriers to growth, using insights to develop 'fit for purpose' sustainable solutions that can deliver resilience, improvement and value throughout the chain.

Our Team and Partnerships

The SAOS Team has a wealth of supply chain knowledge and experience and provides advice and support through its various business workstreams.

Find out more

Our Objectives

Our key objective is to build practical solutions and support to overcome supply chain challenges and barriers to sustainable growth.

Our Objectives

Stronger Food and Drink Supply Chains

A key area of our work is finding ways to build more sustainability and resilience into the supply chain, to make them stronger.

Watch our Stronger Supply Chains Video

Latest news and blogs

Keep up with the latest from our supply chain team.

Our current work includes

(use the arrows to scroll through some of our current work streams)

Strategic Partnerships through Sourcing for Growth

Sourcing for Growth connects food manufacturers with local producers of high-quality produce, helping drive growth and build resilience.

Explore Opportunities

Supply Chain Insights

Supply Chain Insights provide overviews of Scotland’s key food and drink sectors, facts and figures summaries, research reports on new opportunities, case studies and access to market intelligence reports.

Sustainability

The three elements of sustainability in supply chains – economic, environmental and social - are key to how we approach sustainability across the supply chain.

Resilience

Risk management and vulnerability in supply chains to shocks are key considerations for business resilience. SAOS provides expert advice on actions supply chains can take to mitigate risks.

Developing New Opportunities and Adding Value

SAOS works with a wide range of partners to help open new routes to market at local, regional, national and international levels; identify ways to add more value to products; reduce waste and improve profitability and efficiency through collaboration with supply chain partners.

Low Ground Venison Supply Chain Project

Centred on low ground areas, this project provides funding for stalkers and deer managers to improve infrastructure, increase capacity, and bring more locally-harvested venison to market.

Find out more

Network and Partnership Building

The core of what we do, we believe the best way to tackle many of the major issues facing us is by working together to share expertise and develop collaborative solutions.