Social procurement practices in food logistics: A case study of a South European food processing company

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The covid-19 pandemic has shown how an unpredictable event may affect the sustainability of the entire food supply chain highlighting the need for a sustainable approach to food logistics. While existing literature has focused on production and consumption, little attention has been paid to measuring social sustainability in food transportation. This is a critical gap, as transportation plays a vital role in ensuring the timely and safe delivery of food. This paper proposes a novel approach to measure social sustainability in the context of food logistics within a South European food processing company. The focus is on assessing social procurement practices at the level of logistics suppliers. The methodology developed is based on two levels, seven dimensions, and twenty-one food logistics social sustainability indicators. To validate this, the methodology is adopted to assess the social procurement of five food logistics suppliers (FLS) of a European food company and found significant variations in performance across different dimensions. The results suggest that the dimension in which suppliers perform well are: “characteristics and work welfare”, “health of employees”, and “human rights implementation and integration”. On the other hand, the dimensions that score lowest for all suppliers are “diversity and equal opportunities”, “external stakeholder community capital”, and “innovation practices”. The strength of this methodology lies in its ability to quantify social sustainability in food logistics and its practical implementation within the food logistics company, as well as among its logistics suppliers, in terms of social procurement. The results offer valuable insights and suggestions for the case study food company to improve their consideration of social sustainability aspects in a more comprehensive and effective manner throughout their business operations.