Challenges in perishable food supply chains for sustainability management: A developing economy perspective

Abstract

Perishable food supply chains (PFSCs) are characterized with rising food quality and safety concerns, alarming food wastages and losses, and poor economic sustainability.Owing to the perishable nature of products and limited shelf life, management of sustainability in PFSCs is critical. Many studies on sustainability in PFSCs have considered developed countries; however, developing countries, have not gathered the required research attention in this domain. In this paper, a decision-theory based framework is adopted, where a prescriptive decision analysis methodology is used to generate preferences among the challenges to sustainability in PFSC. An integrated Interpretive Structural Modelling-Analytic Network Process (ISM-ANP) decision framework is formulated to identify and model key challenges to sustainability in PFSCs, keeping a developing economy like India under consideration. The contextual relationships amongst the extracted challenges are analysed using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) methodology. The relationships identified from ISM are used as inputs in the Analytic Network Process (ANP) methodology, to generate the priority weights of the challenges. The findings of the integrated methodology show "Lack of horizontal integration of farmers", "poor pre-harvest management", "lack of government regulation and support" to be the most critical challenges for sustainability in PFSCs. The results show that organizations must work on aggregation of farm produce and integration of farmers with the market. Development of infrastructures and cold chain facilities at the farm level are necessary to mitigate these challenges to reduce wastages in PFSC. The study facilitates managers and planners to understand and enable sustainable practices in PFSCs.

Risk Assessment and Monitoring of Green Logistics for Fresh Produce Based on a Support Vector Machine

“…The effects of freshness-keeping efforts Bogataj et al [14] The effects of time, distance, and temperature Diabat A et al [15] Considering the disruption of disaster scenarios Mohammed A et al [16] Investigating environmental impact Ingrao et al [18] Life Circle Assessment The effects of packing technology in environmental sustainability Perezmesa et al [19] Survey and Analysis Several scholars studied how to improve the sustainability of fresh food supply chains from different aspects, such as packing technology, information sharing, uncertainty demand, and price uncertainties [18,19,21]. Nevertheless, effectively identifying and managing logistic risks in the fresh produce supply is difficult due to the lack of targeted measures.…”

“…Within the context of differing sustainability concepts and approaches, Perezmesa et al [19] analyzed supply chain management strategies of large retail distribution chains in Europe. Kumar et al [21] formulated an integrated interpretive structural modeling-analytic network process decision framework to identify and model key challenges to sustainability in perishable food supply chains. To reduce waste and improve sustainability, Gokarn [23] and Kaipia et al [24] studied the influence of supply, demand, price uncertainties, and information sharing in fresh produce supply chains.…”

“…Environmental risk represents the impact of uncertainty in the natural and social environment, such as changes in the weather or traffic congestion. Emergency risk is caused by insufficient management ability of logistics enterprises, including transportation optimization ability, staff training ability, and emergency management ability [21]. Indicators are divided into two categories according to whether they can be measured directly.…”

“…Previous researchers have focused their efforts on scheduling optimization when examining fresh produce logistics [11][12][13][14][15][16], as well as many studies have focused on supply chain risk identification and management [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], and several researchers have investigated fresh produce logistics risk. Therefore, fresh produce logistics still have bad classification and identification management, which may cause food loss in many supply chain links, including transport, storage, loading, unloading, handling, and packaging [23].…”

Reducing Food Waste Through Lean and Sustainable Operations: A Case Study From the Poultry Industry

“…A basic standpoint for solving interrelated problems in these areas is dealing with finding enough food supply for 1.7 billion additional people by the end of the century. Total production worldwide is approximately four billion metric tons per year, but 30-50% of the food produced is lost for various reasons (Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 2013;Kumar, Mangla, Kumar, & Karamperidis, 2020). Food waste starts with initial agricultural production for consumption by end-users and losses are high both in industrialized and emerging economies.…”