How systemic innovations require alterations along the entire supply chain: the case of animal-derived functional foods

It has been widely accepted that different types of innovation have different implications for the whole innovation process. However, less is known about how the specific type of innovation may affect the entire supply chain. In order to explore how the character of innovations affects supply chain coordination, this paper compares four cases drawn from the evolving sector of animal-derived functional foods. By paying special attention to the chain and network perspective on autonomous and systemic innovations this paper intends to present an overview of animal-derived functional foods togehter with a classification scheme to better understand how innovations in this field can be successfully managed. Findings of the case studies lead to the hypotheses that supply chain coordination differs according to the specific type of innovation and that the more systemic the innovation is (i.e. the more linkages in the chain it creates) the more centralized supply chain coordination ought to be.