Food loss factors in the cold supply chain: a case study in the poultry sector

Abstract

Food loss is one of the challenges in the cold chain (CC), which can lead to serious problems with human safety, environment, and economies around the world. Recently, reducing food loss has drawn public attention; previous studies mostly gave attention to food loss drivers in the retailer- -consumer stages of the supply chain. In this study, we focused on identi- fying food-loss-factors (FLF) all over the CC, and developed an approach based on multi decision-making methods and fuzzy sets to rank FLFs by those who have more influence on food loss in the poultry sector. The first phase concerns the identification of FLFs based on the literature as well as experts opinions in the poultry field. Then fuzzy Delphi method was im- plemented to reach the consistency level of >75% among all the group members. In the second phase, fuzzy AHP method was employed for the weighting of FLFs, in order to rank them. For the validation of our contri- bution, a sensitivity analysis was performed. This research presents a guide for decision makers in the CC to help them make an efficient strat- egy plan to reduce food loss during logistic activities. Keywords: cold chain (CC), food loss factors (FLF), MCDM, poultry supply chain, sensitivity analysis.