Abstract
AbstractThe quality of such processed agrifood products as dehydrated apple is related to the quality and variety of fresh harvested products and connected with wastage reduction throughout the agrifood supply chain. For this purpose, cold‐storage management is important to avoid or mitigate the quality decay of fresh products stored in refrigerated systems. This paper explores the benefits of a two‐stage stochastic programming model for product quality through the selection of producers and the management of cold storage to mitigate deterioration and guarantee the maintenance of quality. A case study with real data from an agribusiness company is presented in the case study to illustrate and assess the suitability of the stochastic approach. Uncertainty regarding the conversion rate of fresh apples into the final dehydrated product and the purchase cost of the apples in the system are represented through scenarios generated from historical data. Recourse actions include the purchase of additional fruit and renting of additional cold stores to meet the demand. Based on the different scenarios, the value of the stochastic solution shows that modeling and solving the proposed stochastic model minimizes costs by an average of around 6.4%. In addition, the expected value of perfect information demonstrates that using a proactive strategy could reduce costs by up to 9%. These results ensure the applicability of this model in practice before and during the harvesting season for planning and replanning as uncertainty is revealed under a rolling horizon.
Highlights
As any corrective action to purchase more fruit beyond the harvesting season could represent an extra or lesser cost depending on the market, purchasing decisions are more critical when processing plants, warehouses, and orchards belong to different private companies or farmers and which have to coordinate with each other (Nadal-Roig and Plà-Aragonés, 2015)
We propose a two-stage stochastic programming model aimed at supporting tactical decision making regarding supplier selection and storage contracts in agrifood supply chains (ASCs) like fruit supply chains (FSCs)
The general model was evaluated based on a case study with real data from a Chilean dehydrated apple processing plant
Summary
The food industry has played an essential role in human society. agrifood supply chains (ASCs) in general and fruit supply chains (FSCs) in particular have grown significantly, fueled by increasing demand for healthier and greener lifestyles (Soto-Silva et al, 2016). At the beginning of the season, processing plants have to make relevant tactical decisions, such as the selection of enough suppliers and cold storage to ensure procurement to maintain the processing plant to operate until the following season This forces other agents to coordinate with these plants (Soto-Silva et al, 2017; Flores and Villalobos, 2020). We formulate a two-stage stochastic optimization model with recourses (Kall, 1994), where the first-stage decision variables (i.e., here and ) represent proactive decisions taken before the uncertainty is revealed These include the purchase of fresh produce, that is, apples, or the renting of cold storage to keep the processing plant operating throughout the season. The model considers a list of farmers, some private companies offering storage capacity, a fleet of trucks in
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