The following case is both bizarre and obscure. While this seems more likely a case study in brand value, here it is associated with supply-chain management.

Event: Social media attack on Kit Kat, 2010

Description of event: On 17 March 2010, the environmental group Greenpeace launched a social media attack on Nestl's Kit Kat brand. Greenpeace had found that Nestl was sourcing palm oil from Sinar Mas, an Indonesian supplier that Greenpeace claimed was engaged in unsustainable forest clearing. Greenpeace posted a video on YouTube parodying the "Have a break: have a Kit Kat" slogan; in the video, a bored office worker bites off a finger of a Kit Kat that turns out to be the bloody finger of an orangutan, one of the many species threatened by unsustainable forest clearing for palm oil production.

Main consequences: Nestl's initial response was to make a statement that it only used 0.7% of global palm oil production and to force YouTube to take down the video, citing copyright. However, this lead to an outbreak of criticism on social media (such as Facebook) and prompted Greenpeace to just post the video on Vimeo, another social media site, and then on 21 March 2010, it reappeared on YouTube. So Nestl suspended palm oil purchases from Sinar Mas and entered dialogue with Greenpeace. Nestl also chose Forest Trust, a non-profit organization, to help it liaise with Greenpeace and audit its suppliers. Then in May 2010, Nestl joined the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, a partnership of companies and other parties aimed at eliminating unsustainable production. Nestle now has a goal of using only palm oil certified as sustainable by 2015.

In a broad sense, what steps would you recommend in assessing your company's upstream supply chain? What characteristics and qualities would you look for in a supplier?

Case Study Source: https://www.riskmethods.net/resources/research/supply_chain_failures_2013_final_web.pdf