The flow diagram presenting the results for this supply chain, produced as part of the SOCLE project, offers a complete view of how material circulates through the chain, from supplies to final outlets. It is a Sankey-type representation: the thickness of the arrows is proportional to the quantities (in kilotonnes, kt), making it possible to grasp at a glance the relative weight of each segment.
This diagram aims to represent the supply chain as a whole at the most detailed level possible. Although some data could be mobilised at a finer level of detail than the one shown, it did not make it possible to guarantee complete data all along the chain: such data is therefore shown in aggregated form on the diagram.
The diagram represents all the material flows within each cereal supply chain in France (soft wheat, maize, barley, durum wheat, triticale, sorghum, oats, rye, buckwheat, rice, spelt, millet), from supply sources to the various final uses, for the 3 crop years studied in the SOCLE project: 2015/16, 2019/20 and 2023/24 (select the desired crop year in the timeline at the bottom of the diagram).
Supplies include production from national harvests, supplemented where applicable by imports, stock variations and on-farm self-consumption. These flows feed the grain collection and marketing circuits. The intermediate market highlights the diversity of processing routes specific to cereal chains: flour milling, starch and gluten production, semolina milling, malting, brewing, distilling and other primary processing industries. This part of the diagram shows how grains are distributed among these uses and the generation of numerous co-products (milling by-products, spent grains, residues), which play a central role in the balance of the chain. The outlets include human food, animal feed, non-food uses (energy, biomaterials, various industries), seeds, exports, as well as losses, final stocks or undetermined uses.
The thickness of the flows makes it possible to identify the main recovery routes and to compare, from one chain to another, the relative place of food, industrial and export uses, while keeping a consistent reading structure across cereal crops.
