Essay on PEST analysis

2.1. Political factors

GPO. (2012). Code of Federal Regulations ”“ Title 21 Food and Drugs. URL: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR&searchPath=Title+21&oldPath=&isCollapsed=true&selectedYearFrom=2012&ycord=684

The resource contains the collection of general and permanent rules which were published in the Federal Register and relate to Food and Drugs section. The changes of legislation can be traced using this resource. It is necessary to perform very detailed searches in order to find relevant information, but this resource has the advantage of gathering federal regulations in one place.

Food Law. (2012). Food Law Reference Site. URL: http://www.foodlaw.org/

The resource provides numerous links to legal documents and regulations related to the sphere of food manufacturing. The greatest advantage of this resource is the collection of multiple links and resources in one place; the disadvantage is the scattering of these resources.

2.2. Economic factors

U.S. Census Bureau. (2012). Economic Census. URL: http://www.census.gov/econ/census/

This resource can be used for analyzing the state of the economy, key economic indicators and is a core source of information for analysis of economic factors. It provides a diverse set of data, and the only limitation is that the website covers only the U.S. data.

IMF. (2012). World Economic Outlook. URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/weodata/index.aspx

The resource contains data on the trends in world economy, and can be used to assess the key economic factors affecting food manufacturing industry in general.

2.3. Sociocultural factors

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). Industries at a Glance: Food Manufacturing: NAICS 311. URL: http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag311.htm

The source provides detailed data on employment and workforce statistics for the industry. Data on earnings, salaries, work hours, industry pricing and projections are highly important for the analysis of social factors in the industry. This source is focused on the U.S. data which creates a certain limitation for the analysis.

Food Processing. (2012). Food Trends. URL: http://www.foodprocessing.com/resource_centers/food_trends/index.html

The data provided by this resource reflect key social trends, preferences and news in food processing. The data collection is rather diverse, but gives a good overview of the development of food manufacturing industry. It is difficult to check the independence of this source (which is a limitation), but the diversity and abundance of data implicitly proves this.

2.4. Technical factors

Export.gov. (2012). Food Processing and Packaging. URL: http://export.gov/industry/food/index.asp

The resource provides customized market research reports in the sphere of food processing and packaging. These reports contain data on factors affecting competitiveness of food manufacturing companies, and on the impact of technology factors in particular. The limitation of this resource is the need to aggregate data from different market reports.

FAO. (2012). The Agroprocessing Industry and Economic Development. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5800e/w5800e12.htm

This resource contains statistics and research on the use of technology and processing in agro-industries in general and in food manufacturing in particular. Although data are presented in aggregated format, the resource gives important insight into the effect of technology on food manufacturing market.