Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management Research Articles

Metaheuristic-driven extended exergy accounting for sustainable closed-loop food supply chain management

In this research, an exergetic mathematical model is proposed for closed-loop food supply chain network design considering economic, environmental, and social aspects. The studded closed-loop food supply chain consists of six echelons, four echelons for forwarding the products (suppliers, factory, distribution centers, and customers), and two echelons for returning the products (collecting centers and disposal centers). The exergetic model is based on the extended exergy accounting method, which calculates the consumed exergy in all six echelons by considering the equivalents of labor and capital exergy. This model aims to minimize both the economic and exergetic costs associated with the food supply chain. To solve the proposed mathematical model, an ensemble global–local search metaheuristic algorithm utilizing a combined whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and simulated annealing (SA), called CWOASA, is proposed. In the CWOASA algorithm, first, WOA is used to search the entire search space. Next, SA is applied to further improve the best solution obtained by WOA. A real dataset of a dairy supply chain is used to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed metaheuristic-driven exergy analysis model and claim its benefits over the existing methods. Simulation results revealed that the proposed method leads to a 6.74% reduction in the total exergy consumption of the supply chain. The proposed methodology offers valuable insights, shedding light on the prospective gains in terms of mitigated environmental impact for each incremental economic expenditure, thus laying the foundation for promising avenues of future research.

Hunger games search optimization with deep learning model for sustainable supply chain management

The supply chain network is one of the most important areas of focus in the majority of business circumstances. Blockchain technology is a feasible choice for secure information sharing in a supply chain network. Despite the fact that maintaining security at all levels of the blockchain is difficult, cryptographic methods are commonly used in existing works. Effective supply chain management (SCM) offers various benefits to organizations, such as enhanced customer satisfaction, increased operational efficiency, competitive advantage, and cost reduction. Potential SCM for agricultural and food supply chains needs distributors, coordination and collaboration among farmers, retailers, and stakeholders. The use of technology like Block Chain (BC), sensors, and data analytics, can boost traceability and visibility, decrease waste, and ensure safety and quality throughout the supply chain. Therefore, this study develops a Hunger Games Search Optimization with Deep Learning Model for Sustainable agricultural and food Supply Chain Management (HGSODL-ASCM) technique. The fundamental goal of the HGSODL-ASCM technique is to improve decision-making processes for agricultural and food commodity production and storage in order to optimise revenue. In the provided HGSODL-ASCM technique, a bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) model is built to determine the amount of productivity and storage required to maximise profit. In order to boost the performance of the Bi-LSTM classification process, the HGSO algorithm has been utilized in this work. The presented HGSODL-ASCM technique can independently achieve the SCM policies via interaction with complicated and adaptive environments. A brief set of simulations were performed to ensure the improved performance of the HGSODL-ASCM technique. The simulation results demonstrated how superior the HGSODL-ASCM method is to other methods already in use.

Sustainable halal food supply chain management in a small rentier halal market

PurposeThere is limited knowledge of the sustainable halal food supply management in Brunei Darussalam (Brunei), although it is reputable in the halal economy and advocates the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, this paper highlights issues faced in a small, rentier halal market and proposes sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) initiatives for halal-certified food companies in Brunei.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws data from published academic research and employs a normative and narrative assessment of SSCM and halal supply chain literature.FindingsFour normative SSCM initiatives and propositions that could be implemented by Brunei halal-certified food businesses in achieving the SDGs are highlighted: responsible sourcing, environmental purchasing, sustainable packaging and green transportation.Practical implicationsThis viewpoint paper provides a basis for achieving the “Brunei Vision 2035” through a sustainable supply chain lens that may increase well-being and develop a productive and sustainable economy. It also lays a foundation for realising the SDGs, specifically Goal 12 of Sustainable Consumption and Production.Originality/valueThe dedicated attention to smaller halal markets, such as Brunei, would enrich the literature, reveal unforeseen issues or address gaps in the domains of SSCM and halal food supply chains.

Resilient reverse logistics with blockchain technology in sustainable food supply chain management during COVID‐19

AbstractCOVID‐19, which is a global problem, affects the all supply chains throughout the world. One of the supply chains most affected by COVID‐19 is food supply chains. Since the sustainable food supply chain processes are complex and vulnerable in terms of product variety, it has been negatively affected by the operational effects of COVID‐19. While the problems experienced in the supply chain processes and raw material constraints caused stops in production, the importance of new business models and production approaches came to the fore. One of the issues of increasing importance is the adoption of reverse logistics activities in sustainable food supply chains and increasing the resilience of food supply chains by integrating blockchain technology into processes. However, adapting blockchain technology to increase the resilience of reverse logistics activities in the food supply chain has advantages as well as risks that need to be considered. Therefore, it is aimed to determine these risks by using fuzzy synthetic evaluation method for eliminating the risks of blockchain adaptation for flexible reverse logistics in food supply chains to increase resiliency. The novelty of this study is that besides discussing about the benefits of BC‐T, it is to identify the risks it can create, to eliminate these risks and to guide the establishment of resilience in reverse logistics activities of SFSCs. According to results, the risks with the highest value among the subrisks are determined as data security risks. Data management risks are calculated as the risk with the highest value.

IT success factors in sustainable food supply chain management

Population growth and global trade have a major impact on the sustainability of supply chains, especially in the food industry. Sustainability in the food supply chain is dependent on the way; food is manufactured, processed, and consumed. Food shortages have been steadily rising over the past few years, due to the ongoing tensions between members of the food industry. Information technology in the current environment greatly helps organizations achieve their goals. Success factors in Information Technology are the driving factors to implement Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management model successfully in dairy industry. Present study mainly focused on success factors and their analysis. Seven success factors were determined and those factors were further analyzed by Grey Relational Analysis a multi criteria decision method. The Grey Relational Analysis method is very useful and is one of the most widely used models of grey system theory and uses a detailed view of information. The grey connection range defines the value of the output-based factors and ranks them accordingly. E-Commerce holds the first position in the grey relational grade list having value of 0.30 and digital literacy comes at the end with value of 0.80.

Investigation of Food Supply Chain Sustainability Performance for Turkey's Food Sector

Increasing product demands, environmental aspects and overpopulation have an impact on the sustainability of a supply chain, especially in the food sector. In a food supply chain from production to consumption, there are many parameters (resources, packaging, waste management etc.) that need to be taken into account for sustainability. The aim of this study is to determine the parameters affecting sustainable food supply chain management for the food sector and to measure the performance of the parameters along the supply chain. In this study, several performance indices are defined and sub-criteria by reviewing the previously discussed indices in the literature and accounting for expert opinions on the sustainable food supply chain. The parameters are explained as customer satisfaction, resource utilization, safety of products, innovation, reliability, company information, packaging, waste management dimensions that should be improved in sustainable food supply chain management. Performance score for each dimension is calculated with Structural Equation Modeling and Analytic Hierarchy Process. As a result of the sustainable food supply chain performance evaluation made in the food sector in Turkey it is determined to be 79,7 out of 100. The results of this study include feedbacks on parameters in the food chain from agriculture to consumers.

A Content-Analysis Based Literature Review in Blockchain Adoption within Food Supply Chain.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one out of 10 people get sick from eating contaminated food. Complex food production process and globalization make food supply chain more delicate. Many technologies have been investigated in recent years to address food insecurity and achieve efficiency in dealing with food recalls. One of the most promising technologies is Blockchain, which has already been used successfully in financial aspects, such as bitcoin, and it is attracting interests from food supply chain organizations. As blockchain has characteristics, such as decentralization, security, immutability, smart contract, it is therefore expected to improve sustainable food supply chain management and food traceability. This paper applies a content-analysis based literature review in blockchain adoption within food supply chain. We propose four benefits. Blockchain can help to improve food traceability, information transparency, and recall efficiency; it can also be combined with Internet of things (IoT) to achieve better efficiency. We also propose five potential challenges, including lack of deeper understanding of blockchain, technology difficulties, raw data manipulation, difficulties of getting all stakeholders on board, and the deficiency of regulations.

Making food supply chain sustainable: participating smallholder farmers in modern retail channels

Modern retail channels of food products require continuity of supply of food products such as fruits and vegetables from farmers. The relationship between farmers and retailers in modern retail channels can be created with sustainable food supply chain management (SFSCM). SFSCM is needed in response to increasing consumer concerns about health, food security, and social and environmental issues. The research objective is to determine the enabler to implement SFSCM based on the participation of small-scale farmers in modern retail channels, focused on fruit and vegetable products. The method applied is interpretive structural modelling (ISM) that has the ability to combine and clarify the possibilities and interactions. This helps to discuss direct and indirect relations between farmers and modern retailers. Some enablers, such as physical infrastructure and collaboration and work among supply chain members and stakeholders, are found to have strong and fundamental driving forces in SFSCM.

Making food supply chain sustainable: participating smallholder farmers in modern retail channels

Modern retail channels of food products require continuity of supply of food products such as fruits and vegetables from farmers. The relationship between farmers and retailers in modern retail channels can be created with sustainable food supply chain management (SFSCM). SFSCM is needed in response to increasing consumer concerns about health, food security, and social and environmental issues. The research objective is to determine the enabler to implement SFSCM based on the participation of small-scale farmers in modern retail channels, focused on fruit and vegetable products. The method applied is interpretive structural modelling (ISM) that has the ability to combine and clarify the possibilities and interactions. This helps to discuss direct and indirect relations between farmers and modern retailers. Some enablers, such as physical infrastructure and collaboration and work among supply chain members and stakeholders, are found to have strong and fundamental driving forces in SFSCM.

A hierarchical data architecture for sustainable food supply chain management and planning

The agro-food industry is one of the largest parts of the European Union's economy and faces economic and environmental stresses. While food traceability systems (FTSs) inform supply chain actors of product and logistical attributes, large scale implementations are scarce and are do not support active decision making. We present a framework developed for FUTUREMED project used to perform a data-driven analysis that considers both micro and macro aspects of a food supply chain (FSC). With its comprehensive multiple-depth data architecture incorporated within a tailored decision-support platform, this framework and the resulting decision-support tool is the first to move beyond simple traceability implementation to the sustainable planning of food logistics, bridging the gap between research techniques and real-world data availability. We define KPIs that measure a subset of economic and environmental factors to quantify the impact of logistical decisions. We validate the framework with the case study of an Italian fruit trader that is considering opening a new warehouse. We conclude by suggesting that this framework be applied to more complex case studies and be enhanced through including more dimensions of sustainability.

Empirical study of sustainable food supply chain management practices in China

Purpose This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practices on sustainable performance and the further impact of sustainable performance on food safety assurance in Chinese food firms. The paper also aims to provide a new way to avoid the occurrence of food safety problems from the perspective of SSCM and so help food firms to achieve sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach This paper developed a conceptual model to investigate the impact of food firms SSCM practices on the firm performances while firm performances on food safety assurance. The primary data were collected from 162 Chinese food firms. The research models were tested using structural equation modeling on PLS smart 3.0. Findings The results show that SSCM practices have a positive impact on firm environmental performance and social performances. The environmental and social performance positively related to financial performance. Moreover, the sustainable performance positively affects the food safety assurance. Research limitations/implications Our results suggest that SSCM practices have a positive impact on a firm’s environmental and social performance, which in turn improves financial performance. Moreover, sustainable performance positively affects food safety assurance. Originality/value An SSCM practices model is proposed to empirically evaluate Chinese food firms. The results of this investigation support the hypotheses that SSCM practices are environmentally and socially friendly and are good to business, and the food safety assurance can be promoted by a food firm’s sustainability performance. We carried out a survey and research of SSCM in food industry and gave insights to food safety management.

Ranking the Success Factors to Improve Safety and Security in Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management Using Fuzzy AHP

Safety and security in food sector is a big problem in present days. Companies are spending a huge amount of money in safety and security to minimize the food losses. The present work mainly focuses for the improvement of safety and security in Sustainable Food Supply Chain Management (SFSCM). Initially, nine success factors (SFs) relevant to safety and security in SFSCM execution were determined on the basis of literature survey and from expert’s opinion. Therefore, a commonly used multi criteria decision making (MCDM) tool, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized as a method in this work for finding relative importance of among the SFs. Fuzzy AHP is a powerful tool which reduces uncertainty or biasness in the human made judgments between the factors. Packaging and government policies are found to be important success factors in safety and security for implementation of SFSCM. The proposed model can help the practitioners and mangers to plan a long term strategies in efficiently implementing a sustainable food supply chain.

Critical factors for sustainable food procurement in zoological collections.

Food procurement can play an important role in sustainable food supply chain management by zoos, linking organizational operations to the biodiversity conservation and sustainability mission of zoological collections. This study therefore examines the critical factors that shape sustainable food procurement in zoo and aquariums. Using a web-based survey data was collected from 41 members of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA). This included information on the sustainable food procurement practices of these institutions for both their human and animal food supply chains, as well as profile information and data on the factors contributing to and inhibiting sustainable procurement practices. Zoological collections operated by charities, and those with a certified sustainability standard, were found to have significantly higher levels of sustainable food procurement. Zoos and aquariums whose human food operations were not contracted to an external party were also found to have significantly higher levels of sustainable food procurement in their human food supply chain. The most important drivers of sustainable food procurement were cost savings, adequate financial support and improved product quality. The highest ranking barriers were higher costs, other issues taking priority and a lack of alternative suppliers. The results suggest that a number of critical factors shape sustainable food procurement in zoological collections in the British Isles. Financial factors, such as cost savings, were important considerations. The significance of mission-related factors, such as charity status, indicated that core values held by zoos and aquariums can also influence their food procurement practices.

Modeling an Inventory Routing Problem for perishable products with environmental considerations and demand uncertainty

The transition to sustainable food supply chain management has brought new key logistical aims such as reducing food waste and environmental impacts of operations in the supply chain besides the traditional cost minimization objective. Traditional assumptions of constant distribution costs between nodes, unlimited product shelf life and deterministic demand used in the Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) literature restrict the usage of the proposed models in current food logistics systems. From this point of view, our interest in this study is to enhance the traditional models for the IRP to make them more useful for the decision makers in food logistics management. Therefore, we present a multi-period IRP model that includes truck load dependent (and thus route dependent) distribution costs for a comprehensive evaluation of CO2 emission and fuel consumption, perishability, and a service level constraint for meeting uncertain demand. A case study on the fresh tomato distribution operations of a supermarket chain shows the applicability of the model to a real-life problem. Several variations of the model, each differing with respect to the considered aspects, are employed to present the benefits of including perishability and explicit fuel consumption concerns in the model. The results suggest that the proposed integrated model can achieve significant savings in total cost while satisfying the service level requirements and thus offers better support to decision makers.

A Review on Quantitative Models for Sustainable Food Logistics Management

The last two decades food logistics systems have seen the transition from a focus on traditional supply chain management to food supply chain management, and successively, to sustainable food supply chain management. The main aim of this study is to identify key logistical aims in these three phases and analyse currently available quantitative models to point out modelling challenges in sustainable food logistics management (SFLM). A literature review on quantitative studies is conducted and also qualitative studies are consulted to understand the key logistical aims more clearly and to identify relevant system scope issues. Results show that research on SFLM has been progressively developing according to the needs of the food industry. However, the intrinsic characteristics of food products and processes have not yet been handled properly in the identified studies. The majority of the works reviewed have not contemplated on sustainability problems, apart from a few recent studies. Therefore, the study concludes that new and advanced quantitative models are needed that take specific SFLM requirements from practice into consideration to support business decisions and capture food supply chain dynamics