Panjiva, creator of a business-to-business platform for global trade, is now offering access to Chinese trade data.

Bangladesh is a dangerous place to work in a factory as the Rana Plaza building collapse shows. Local health and safety regulations are so weak that last spring, even before the Rana Plaza disaster, executives at Disney decided they would no longer source toys and apparel from Bangladesh. The company felt the risk to its reputation wasn't worth the low cost of production.

Although the corporate tax director doesn't normally pow-wow each week with the head of sustainability, a new green-tax index just might encourage more talking between the two - and maybe with the CFO in on the conversation.

And you thought Europeans had problems with their horse meat scandals. In China, consumers have to worry about getting served rat meat for dinner.

The Supply Chain Council has launched M4SC, a newly developed framework and accompanying training tool for supply-chain management.

Ask any food industry executive to cite his or her greatest concern, and the answer will almost always be the same: product safety. But the list doesn't stop there. Like any other business sector, food manufacturers are grappling with a number of challenges, many of them related to the age of the internet and social media.