Human Body Food Supply Chain and Inventory Models Analogy: An Empirical Validation

The purpose of this paper is to empirically validate or discard analogies between human body food supply chain and inventory flow in material management based on the paper titled ‘Inventory Models and Human Body Food Supply Chain: Some Managerial Insights’ by Vrat in which some conjectures were proposed by him. This paper is an attempt to take these conjectures forward to the level of postulates. This is an empirical study administered through two-phase surveys for determining shared perception of a wider group. This study also investigates the effect of age, gender and education on the perception of people on these conjectures. A-G-E (Age-Gender-Education) analysis is applied for this purpose. The findings indicate a strong parallel between Vrat’s conjectures and survey results. Findings of the A-G-E analysis indicate that the difference in the perception due to demographic factors is significant for many conjectures. It is hoped that this research will bring new insights for managers in handling various issues in a supply chain and also the scientific inventory models can help persons to gain better insights about food intake policies in human body.