Sustainability and green food supply chain

2020 ◽  
Vol 295 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Mogale ◽  
Sri Krishna Kumar ◽  
Manoj Kumar Tiwari

Author(s):  
Qifan Hu ◽  
Qianyun Xu ◽  
Bing Xu

The popularity of e-commerce has impacted traditional retail business. Farmer cooperatives running green agri-food pick-your-own (PYO) farms are facing the choice of whether or not to adopt online channels. PYO operation refers to consumers picking and purchasing the agri-food growing on a farm, and due to it being environmentally-friendly, healthy, and popular, it has been widely adopted by many farm cooperatives. This paper aims to discuss the practicality of introducing online channels to already established PYO farms in the green agri-food supply chain (GASC), who can personally take charge of the online channel or transfer it to one online retailer. Firstly, we constructed the demand functions of green agri-food by putting consumer utility, the freshness of agri-food, and transportation cost into consideration. Secondly, five decision models are built to characterize five operation modes, namely pure PYO mode, self-operated dual-channel mode, decentralized dual-channel mode, centralized dual-channel mode, and contractual cooperation mode. Furthermore, by taking price, demand, and profit with different modes into consideration, we are able to explore the introduction of online channels and green brand construction. Finally, numerical analysis is performed. We found that: (1) introducing an online channel is preferable strategy since the profit of the farmer cooperative in pure PYO mode is always less than the profit of a farmer cooperative in non-self-operated dual-channel modes; (2) the decision of self-operating an online channel is related to the fixed cost of creating a new online channel and the green food brand effect of online channel, and it is the optimal mode in some cases, while the contractual cooperation mode is the optimal mode in the remaining cases; and (3) the green food brand effect of online channels is does not necessarily improve with scale, and the initial freshness has a positive relationship to the profit, demand, and price of farmer cooperatives and online retailers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinghua Zhu ◽  
Xiaoying Li ◽  
Senlin Zhao

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the coordination mechanism of cost sharing for green food production and marketing between a food producer and a supplier who both contribute to the sales of green food. Design/methodology/approach This paper first develops demand functions for both a food supplier and a producer, considering their influence on green degree of food and associated consumers’ acceptances. Then, cost-sharing contracts-based game models are proposed. At last, regarding to optimal supply chain profits and green performance, the proposed contracts and the non-coordination situation are compared and tested by a real case. Findings When green cost is only shared by one side, the cost-sharing contracts cannot optimally coordinate the food supply chain, but it can improve profits for both the supplier and producer. When consumers’ sensitivity to the green degree of food increases, a mutual cost-sharing contract will bring more profits for both the supplier and producer than those under the non-coordination mode in a decentralized supply chain situation. A real case verifies the conclusions. Research limitations/implications The models are in complete information, and the market demand is assumed to be linear to sales price. Mutual cost sharing is only for material processing and food production, which can be extended to include sharing for sales cost. Coordination ideas on the proposed contracts development and solutions for optimal decisions can be applied in the other industries. Practical implications The study shows that coordination between a supplier and a producer is needed to improve the food supply chain’s green performance. Originality/value This paper first extends the existing profit functions by considering the green efforts of both a supplier and a producer as well as their effects on green degree of products and consumers’ acceptances to the green degree.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-47
Author(s):  
N.Arunfred N.Arunfred ◽  
◽  
Dr.D.Kinslin Dr.D.Kinslin

New Medit ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marinos Markou ◽  
Andreas Stylianou ◽  
Marianthi Giannakopoulou ◽  
Georgios Adamides

Unfair Trading Practices (UTPs) between businesses in the food supply chain have a significant impact on the various stakeholders involved, and on the environment. So far, no attempt has been made at the Member State level for the identification of UTPs in the food supply chain and their impact on the relevant stakeholders. This study drew on this gap and attempted to identify the UTPs that exist in the Cypriot food supply chain, assess their impact on the involved stakeholders and provide guidelines that will assist the transposition of EU relevant Directive to the national law. To achieve this goal, the study was based on a quantitative survey of a representative sample of businesses using a specific questionnaire. The results showed that particular UTPs do appear in the food supply chain with a different frequency, while the majority of businesses have been victims of UTPs in the last five years. Notably, the estimated cost of UTPs as a percentage of the business annual turnover is considered important ranging from 5.7% for retailers to 31.9% for farmers. Thus, most participants agree that UTPs in the agricultural food sector should be regulated by national legislation. We argue that the national legislation for UTPs should be a mix of policies that integrate private, administrative and judicial methods of monitoring and enforcement. Policy and decision makers should seek to reinforce the role and the bargaining power of small businesses in the food supply chain. This might be accomplished through the development of efficient producers’ organizations, short food supply chains, interbranch organizations and strategic partnerships.


Author(s):  
Zhaohui Wu ◽  
Madeleine Elinor Pullman

Food supply chain management is becoming a critical management and public policy agenda. Climate change, growing demand, and shifting patterns of food production, delivery, and consumption have elicited a series of new challenges, such as food security, safety, and system resiliency. This chapter first introduces the typical players in a food supply chain and examines the global food system characterized by consolidation and industrialization. It then discusses some critical topics of the sustainable food supply chain that aim to address these challenges. These topics include traceability, transparency, certification and standards, and alternatives to industrialized food systems, including cooperatives, community-supported agriculture, and roles of small and medium-sized growers in regenerative agriculture. The chapter ends with a discussion of several important emerging logistics management topics, including last-mile delivery, new technology, and cold chain management.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1223
Author(s):  
Ilianna Kollia ◽  
Jack Stevenson ◽  
Stefanos Kollias

This paper provides a review of an emerging field in the food processing sector, referring to efficient and safe food supply chains, ’from farm to fork’, as enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The field is of great significance from economic, food safety and public health points of views. The paper focuses on effective food production, food maintenance energy management and food retail packaging labeling control, using recent advances in machine learning. Appropriate deep neural architectures are adopted and used for this purpose, including Fully Convolutional Networks, Long Short-Term Memories and Recurrent Neural Networks, Auto-Encoders and Attention mechanisms, Latent Variable extraction and clustering, as well as Domain Adaptation. Three experimental studies are presented, illustrating the ability of these AI methodologies to produce state-of-the-art performance in the whole food supply chain. In particular, these concern: (i) predicting plant growth and tomato yield in greenhouses, thus matching food production to market needs and reducing food waste or food unavailability; (ii) optimizing energy consumption across large networks of food retail refrigeration systems, through optimal selection of systems that can be shut-down and through prediction of the respective food de-freezing times, during peaks of power demand load; (iii) optical recognition and verification of food consumption expiry date in automatic inspection of retail packaged food, thus ensuring safety of food and people’s health.


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