The inventory routing problem under uncertainty with perishable products: an application in the agri-food supply chain

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a dynamic and stochastic approach for an inventory routing problem in which products with a high perishability must be delivered from a supplier to a set of customers. This problem falls within the agri-food supply chain ( $${\mathcal {ASC}}$$ ) management field, which includes all the activities from production to distribution. The need for high-quality products that are subject to perishability is a critical issue to consider in the $${\mathcal {ASC}}$$ optimization. Moreover, the demand uncertainty makes the problem very challenging. In order to effectively manage all these features, a rolling horizon approach based on a multistage stochastic linear program is proposed. Computational experiments over medium-size instances designed on the basis of the real data provided by an agri-food company operating in Southern Italy show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.