Perishable food procurement decision making in emergency scenarios: a case study from China

Abstract

ABSTRACT The frequent occurrence of natural disasters and public health and safety events bring considerable risk and uncertainty to the supply of materials, especially for perishable fresh food. Currently, there is limited scholarly research addressing the procurement decisions related to perishable fresh food during emergencies. In this paper, the emergency food procurement problem is addressed by considering cost, supply risk, and other factors, and a procurement decision optimisation model is constructed with the dual objectives of minimizing both total cost and supply risk. Additionally, the urban emergency is used as the case study, which provides background description and the actual data that enable better understanding of what actually occurs during emergencies, as well as validating the applicability of the model. The findings could support the decision of supply chain participants engaged in emergency fresh food procurement and enrich the body of theory in the field of emergency fresh food procurement decisions.