Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices and Performance of Food and Beverage Manufacturing Firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya.

The food and beverage manufacturing sector operates in an increasingly uncertain supply chain environment characterized by resource scarcity, environmental degradation, rising regulatory pressure and growing consumer demand for environmentally responsible products. Sustainable supply chain management has emerged as an important approach through which firms can reduce environmental risk while achieving profitability and market share objectives. However, the uptake of sustainable practices among food and beverage manufacturers in Kenya remains inconsistent, and many firms are yet to realize the full performance benefits of these practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to establish the influence of sustainable supply chain management practices on the performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya. It examined four practices, namely sustainable sourcing, reverse logistics, eco-innovation and sustainable packaging. The study was anchored on the Resource Dependence Theory, Systems Theory, Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Circular Economy Theory. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, targeting 95 food and beverage manufacturing firms in Nairobi City County listed by the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, with supply chain managers and procurement officers as the units of observation. A sample of 128 respondents was determined using the Yamane formula and selected through stratified random sampling. Primary data were collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire, which was pilot tested on 12 respondents; all Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeded 0.70. Data were analysed using SPSS version 28 through descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis. A total of 110 questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 85.9%. The findings revealed that the four practices jointly explained 52.1% of the variation in performance. Eco-innovation had the strongest influence on performance, followed by sustainable sourcing, reverse logistics and sustainable packaging, all of which were positive and statistically significant. The study concluded that sustainable supply chain management practices are significant drivers of the performance of food and beverage manufacturing firms. The study therefore recommends that firms should prioritize organically or sustainably certified inputs and maintain supplier sustainability performance databases; streamline returns processes and integrate recycling programmes into supply chain operations; align ecological product design with consumer demand; and strengthen reusable packaging return systems, recycling labels and supplier monitoring for non-hazardous packaging materials.