A pandemic is not a new event encountered in the history of humanity, because mankind has faced various pandemics in history. The common point of pandemics is their serious negative effects on the global economy. Considering the food supply chain, one of the most important sectors of the economy, it has seen that COVID-19 has an impact on the whole process from the field to the consumer. In the light of recent challenges in food supply chain, there is now considerable concern about the food production, processing, distribution, and demand. COVID-19 resulted the movement restrictions of workers, changes in demand of consumers, closure of food production facilities, restricted food trade policies and financial pressures in food supply chain. Therefore, governments should facilitate the movement of workers and agri-food products. In addition, small farmers or vulnerable peoples should be supported financially. Facilities should change the working conditions and maintain the health and safety of employees by altering safety measures. Food protectionist policies should be avoided to prevent an increase in food prices. In conclusion, each country must realize the severity of the situation and sometimes should tighten or loosen the measures according to spreadability of the pandemic. The supply chain also should be flexible enough to respond to the challenges in the food supply chain. The purpose of this review article is to determine the impact of COVID-19 in the agriculture and food sector and to summarize the recommendations required to reduce and control the effect of the pandemic.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify the purchase behavior with regard to innovative food packaging techniques and sociodemographic properties of consumers in Turkey (the crossroads of Europe and Asia). Design/methodology/approach -The survey was conducted with 365 people (around 50 persons for each region) who live in the different regions to represent the whole population of Turkey as good as possible. Questionnaire methodology was used to achieve the research objectives. Multiple-choice test which consists of 24 questions (Table I) were selected in order to keep the questionnaire at a reasonable length. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents in small groups for effective communication. Multiple correspondence, decision tree and prospect profiles statistic procedures were used to identify the purchase behavior. Findings -In the study, some consumers worried that innovative packages might mislead them and therefore sales should be handled under trusted brands. Majority of consumers were willing to use innovative food packages to prevent the microbial spoilage. Consumers indicated that they do not want to see sachets in active food packages due to the probability of mistaken. Consumers who chose the price as a first thing to get their attention in food packaging, would accept the increase in price lesser than 10 percent after seeing the positive impacts of innovative packaging. Most of the consumers' (74.79 percent) expectation from innovative packaging was the visual ability to observe the history and freshness of foods inside the packaging. Participants indicated that education through commercials (40.55 percent) would be the most effective way in order to increase the overall acceptability for innovative packaging.Research limitations/implications -The limitation of this study was that, these questionnaires were applied only to Turkish consumers and findings might not be applicable to other countries. Practical implications -Better understanding of consumer adoption of innovative packages can help to minimize rejection of innovative technologies. Knowledge of consumer behaviors toward active and intelligent packaging can contribute to developing better industry strategies. Originality/value -This paper gives the detailed information about purchasing behavior of Turkish consumers' regarding innovative packaging techniques.

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Fresh strawberries are highly perishable because of their high respiration rates. Three alternative packaging approaches were investigated to maintain the high quality and to extend the shelf life of strawberries. These were active packaging using chlorine dioxide (ClO2) and ethylene-moisture sachets. The quality properties of four groups of samples were measured over 3 weeks at 4°C. The groups were: control, active packaging without ClO2 treatment, active packaging with low-dose (5 ppm) ClO2 treatment and active packaging with high-dose (10 ppm) ClO2 treatment. Measured properties were weight loss, gas concentration, pH, titratable acidity (TA), soluble solids content, texture profile and colour. Active packaging with low-dose (5 ppm) ClO2 treatment was found to be the most effective for TA retention and for maintaining (L) brightness values. The control group showed the largest total soluble solids reduction from 7.60 to 6.57. Active packaging without ClO2 treatment showed the lowest weight loss (0.33%), while the control group showed the highest (1.86%) at the end of the storage.Active packaging with high-dose ClO2 treatment showed the highest preference value in global appearance, colour and firmness properties. The low-and high-dose active packaging groups had greater firmness, gumminess and chewiness than that of all other treatments. The results from this study showed that active packaging treatment with ClO2 and the ethylene-moisture sachets had a beneficial effect on the quality of strawberries and could be used commercially.

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