Food cold chain management: what we know and what we deserve

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a quantitatively supported explanation of the intellectual development, the schools of thought and the sub-areas of the food cold chain (FCC) research to derive meaningful avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach This study builds on bibliometric analysis and network analysis to systematically evaluate a sample of 1,189 FCC articles published over the past 25 years. The descriptive statistics and science mapping approaches using co-citation analysis were performed with VOSviewer software. Findings The findings reveal a state-of-the-art overview of the top contributing and influential countries, authors, institutions and articles in the area of FCC research. A co-citation analysis, coupled with content analysis of most co-cited articles, uncovered four underlying research streams including: application of RFID technologies; production and operation planning models; postharvest waste, causes of postharvest wastage and perishable inventory ordering polices and models; and critical issues in FCC. Current research streams, clusters and their sub-themes provided meaningful discussions and insights into key areas for future research in FCC. Originality/value This study might reshape practitioners’, researchers’ and policy-makers’ views on the multifaceted areas and themes in the FCC research field, to harness FCC’s benefits at both strategic and tactical level. Finally, the research findings offer a roadmap for additional research to yield more practical and modeling insights that are much needed to enrich the field.

The Compounded Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic and Desert Locust Outbreak on Food Security and Food Supply Chain

“…The second diversification depends on transportation. For instance, ships and trains can also be used for fresh foods by adopting high-tech preservation techniques, such as selective inactivation of micro-organisms [76,77].…”

Measurement of consumer awareness of food waste: construct development with a confirmatory factor analysis

“…In prior studies, numerous researchers have discussed food wasted at various stages (Williams et al, 2012;Iorgulescu et al, 2015;Aschemann-Witzel et al, 2015;Stancu et al, 2016;Richter, 2017;Amicarelli and Bux, 2020). Most of these works consider food that was wasted in distribution, transportation, retail and different food services (Drewitt, 2013;Jaaffar, 2013;Cuesta, 2014;Liu, 2014;Shashi et al, 2020). Consequently, food companies gradually integrate numerous ecological and social welfare issues into their operations while adhering to sustainable development principles (Kushwah et al, 2019c).…”

SDG-Oriented Supply Chains: Business Practices for Procurement and Distribution

“…As to distribution, about one-half of practices regards "emissions reduction", confirming the priority of environmental aspects, followed by "loss and waste reduction", which could engage all downstream actors of the SC, such as distributors, wholesalers, carriers, and logistic service providers. For example, the use of artificial intelligence in automated store ordering systems in supermarkets can curb food perishability [86]. In summary, grouping motivations into the three macro-categories (Figure 3), environmental motivations are a priority for both functions.…”

“…Apart from the opportunity of implementing practices within all manufacturing companies, for both procurement and distribution the food industry covers an important share. As to procurement, sustainable practices can be implemented for meat, pasta, cocoa beans, coffee, and eggs [48,[90][91][92], whereas in distribution activities companies can implement methods for setting optimal target temperature for cold storage with sensor-based methods instead of traditional visual assessment [86] or use vacuum packaging to eliminate the presence of bacteria inside the package to improve the shelf life of products [52]. Grouping by sector, the manufacturing sector, which is the most common field for the implementation of SC management, is particularly prevailing (Figure 5).…”