Food cold chain management

Abstract

Purpose Since last few years, cold chain management (CCM) has gained growing interest among practitioners, policymakers, researchers and academicians. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review focused on food cold chain management (FCCM) over the last 16 years to identify state of the art in the literature, highlight research gaps and define appropriate research questions (RQs) for future research. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyzes the content of 89 research articles published on the topic of food cold chain (FCC) from 2001 to 2016 within different journals. The Scopus and Web of Science databases were taken into consideration to shortlist research articles. Henceforth, the authors scrutinized the FCC industry to offer some effective strategies to tackle the chain complexities. The authors also draw interwoven between FCC infrastructure, integration, stakeholders’ interest, value addition, partners’ performance and overall food cold chain performance (FCCP) into a conceptual framework. Findings This paper identifies four research gaps in the literature of FCC concerning the most popular approaches used for the FCCP measurement, the performance measurement metrics, the factors which negatively affect the FCCP and the main sustainability issues in FCC. Originality/value This study identifies RQs which represent possible areas of investigation to improve the body of the FCCP evaluation and management. Furthermore, the FCC practitioners, food authorities and researchers might find this review useful, as it draws a clear picture of research in the respective domain.

Pallet Picking Strategy in Food Collecting Center

“…For agro-food organizations, the chain efficiency represents one of the frontiers for ameliorating competitiveness and related commercial policies by building up a positive environmental image [19,36]. The improved chain efficiency, customer services rate, product quality, availability, affordability, consumption rate and higher customers satisfaction, waste minimization, waste utilization, reduced cost and lead time, and strong competitive advantage in marketplace are only some of the outcomes of value addition practices in the food chain management [37].…”

“…In addition to inefficiencies detected, which would make the national companies uncompetitive, there are irresponsible companies that don't pursuit the sustainable performance theme for the sake of short-term profits. Based on the recently review findings conducted by Shashi et al in [37], it can be inferred that the significant mitigation in waste, emission, energy consumption, use of toxic materials and enlargement in the rate of recycling in agro-food chain operations are due to law requirements rather than merely a business choice [37]. When compared to other European countries such as France and Germany, the fruit and vegetable value chain in Italy presents several criticalities, with a strong imbalance towards a capillary distribution that affects almost equally preservable products (apples, etc.)…”

Evaluation of a Smart System for the Optimization of Logistics Performance of a Pruning Biomass Value Chain

“…The SLS will be used to improve the performance of the biomass supply chain focusing on pruning biomass. In evaluating the performance of supply chain management, it is important to identify the performance measurement metrics within the context of the supply chain under evaluation [6]. The overall performance of a supply chain depends on the role of each stakeholder in the chain [6,7].…”

“…In evaluating the performance of supply chain management, it is important to identify the performance measurement metrics within the context of the supply chain under evaluation [6]. The overall performance of a supply chain depends on the role of each stakeholder in the chain [6,7]. Shashi et al [6] discussed that stakeholders' interest, value addition, and partners' performance play important roles in the overall performance of a supply chain.…”

Best Practices and Methodologies to Promote the Digitization of Public Services Citizen-Driven: A Systematic Literature Review

“…However, classical sources with definitions (books with classical concepts or pioneering articles) were also considered. The defined period of 10 years was identified as suitable for work selection, according to important research guides in the area of software engineering [11,13,[15][16][17][18][19][20]].…”