PSC LIVE Dubai: Tiago Marcaneiro, Americana Foods Keynote
With operations spanning 88 distribution sites, 50 countries and 19 production facilities, Americana Foods handles a supply chain of significant scale and complexity.
At Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE Dubai, Tiago Marcaneiro, Head of Procurement at the company, took to the virtual stage to detail how his team approaches risk management and builds supply chain resilience.
Tiago brought more than 18 years of FMCG experience to the session, focusing on practical procurement tools and collaborative strategies to identify, assess and mitigate risks across the business.
Starting with the basics: analysis, frameworks and categorisation
Tiago began by reaffirming the value of foundational procurement techniques in identifying risk, noting: “Most of the things I will speak about here may look basic, but a lot of companies are not utilising them the way they should be.”
He highlighted spend analysis, cost breakdown and sourcing assessments as crucial early steps in understanding the supply chain.
Using the example of chicken as a core procurement category, he demonstrated how cost analysis links back to risk.
For instance, nearly 50% of chicken breast cost is tied to feed, primarily corn and soy. External factors like weather and harvest outcomes in Brazil, the top chicken exporter, directly influence prices and availability.
Tiago emphasised SWOT analysis as another underused but powerful method: “To really see a good SWOT analysis, to be honest, this is hard.”
He shared how monthly SWOT reviews help identify threats like disease outbreaks in poultry, such as avian influenza in Poland, which affects European imports and triggers ripple effects globally.
Risk categorisation at Americana splits into internal and external factors.
Internally, operational and financial risks are tracked through processes like MRP reviews and supplier financial health.
Externally, the focus shifts to environmental, geopolitical, and regulatory risks, all of which can have significant impacts.
Implementing frameworks and integrating technology
The second segment of Tiago’s talk covered how Americana embeds risk management frameworks into daily workflows.
The team conducts formal quarterly reviews and monthly updates using standard risk matrices, assigning scores to probability and impact.
Tiago explained: “What I really like to do is to incorporate this mechanism in my daily work.” He explained how this includes tracking indicators like slaughter rates, corn and soybean production, and market trends related to disease outbreaks – all of which feed into decision-making.
Technology plays a central role in supporting all of this work.
“We cannot assume that we can track everything by ourselves,” Tiago noted, highlighting the importance of investing in data services and weekly insights reports from partners.
These tools enable proactive monitoring across all categories, not just chicken.
He pointed to the risk monitoring report as a key output: “If I could give you one takeaway, it would be my risk management committee.”
At Americana, the monthly procurement committee, which includes the CFO and CEO, reviews risks, recent decisions, market shifts and recommended actions.
This ensures alignment across the leadership team and embeds procurement strategy into company-wide resilience planning.
Mitigation strategies: diversification and collaboration
In the final part of his presentation, Tiago discussed how Americana mitigates risk by doubling down on well-executed fundamentals.
Chief among them is supplier and geographic diversification. “Most of the time we have a single source for many years and nobody knows why,” he said, urging a return to spend analysis to uncover such dependencies.
While acknowledging that single-sourcing can sometimes make commercial sense, Tiago stressed the need for a plan B.
“Do we need to have a pre-approved supplier in case we need [them]?” he asked, reinforcing the value of pre-qualification and scenario planning.
He also underlined the strategic benefit of long-term partnerships. Strong supplier relationships facilitate early access to information, smoother crisis responses, and greater flexibility.
“A good partnership can solve a lot of problems,” he said.
Lastly, Tiago called for greater transparency across organisations when it comes to risk.
“Procurement professionals know the risks, but they keep [them] to themselves. And when the risk explodes chaos,” he warned.
To avoid this, his team integrates mitigation strategies into broader risk management committees, keeping stakeholders informed and responsive.
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