Assessment of the Endorsers of e-Business Practices for Food Supply Chain Performance System

Globalisation and changing lifestyle of the people has escalated the demand for the more product customisation, taste preferences and awareness about the usage of quality food commodities. Recent developments in the field of information technology and its integration with the business practices has emerged as a new term named ‘e-business’ (EB). Increasing consumer base of the food supply chains (FSC), has escalated the demand of technological and operation advancements by mediating ‘EB’ activities. Such, practices become extensively crucial when the world is suffering from the pandemic of COVID-19, leading to distressing of FSC linkages causing frequent market closures. To tackle the same presented work, explores the various endorsers (EDR) of the ‘EB’ in FSC, which are contemplated by hybrid combination of multi-criteria decision making techniques. Outcomes of the present work aids managers to formulate the decision policies and develop a robust framework in the direction to cling the ‘EB’ practices with FSC.

CADEIAS CURTAS DE ABASTECIMENTO DE ALIMENTOS: UMA CARACTERIZAÇÃO NOS MERCADOS LOCAIS POR MEIO DOS ESTUDOS EMPÍRICOS

Este estudo objetiva analisar o enraizamento que os produtores e consumidores apresentam em sua interação nos mercados locais por meio dos estudos empíricos nas cadeias curtas de abastecimento de alimentos. Para tanto, utilizou-se a metodologia de revisão sistemática para analisar as publicações sobre as cadeias curtas de abastecimento de alimentos, disponibilizadas nas bases Web of Science, SCOPUS e material complementar. Para isso, utilizou-se como apoio o software Ucinet®. Os resultados encontrados apontaram que, dos 26 trabalhos pesquisados, publicados de 2014 até 2019, 21 possuem aplicabilidade empírica. É possível vislumbrar, nesses estudos, que o aspecto social é o que possui o maior destaque, porque são capazes até de servir de ponte entre diferentes mundos sociais, tanto em seus componentes de necessidades quanto nos de seu potencial. Já o aspecto econômico aparece às vezes de forma neutra ou tendo a principal motivação na redução de custos de transporte e eliminação dos agentes intermediários que representavam gastos pesados. Algumas questões, como os cuidados ambientais de pequena escala em pequenas propriedades, por exemplo, mostram-se como lacunas do estudo, o que suscita a questão: as SFSCs (Short food supply chains) serão capazes de limitar os danos ambientais gerados e se conseguirão, além disso, promover externalidades positivas produzidas por alguns modelos de agricultura, em termos de aprimoramento da paisagem ou de proteção da agrobiodiversidade? O papel da confiança na relação produtor/consumidor mereceu destaque. Os demais estudos são pesquisas referentes ao perfil de consumidores ou de agricultores, pesquisas de comportamento e sociodemográficas.

Is the quest to eat healthy a route to enhancing consumer’s food security?

Background On an individual level, food security has multiple dimensions and consumers exhibit heterogeneity in the extent to which different attributes matter in their quest for enhanced food security. The aim of this paper is to explain how the quest for individual food security arises and its dynamic nature and its implications for how food security-enhancing attributes are defined and how they are signaled, and for the role of regulators and food supply chains in establishing credible signals. Results The paper finds that the quest for enhanced individual food security is a dynamic process that responds to the disequilibrium that change brings. The changing role of standards and grades as signals in food markets is discussed as a precursor to considering the implications for both market and non-market (regulatory) failure in determining the appropriate role for the public sector in regulating food safety and quality standards and labeling. The rise of private standards is examined, along with a consideration of how these standards differ in terms of scope and objective and their implications for international trade in increasingly globalized food supply chains. Conclusions Despite the growth of private standards, a clear role remains for mandatory public standards, yet challenges arise when these standards differ across countries.

RiceChain: secure and traceable rice supply chain framework using blockchain technology

The increasing number of rice product safety issues and the potential for contamination have established an enormous need for an effective strategy for the traceability of the rice supply chain. Tracing the origins of a rice product from raw materials to end customers is very complex and costly. Existing food supply chain methods (for example, rice) do not provide a scalable and cost-effective means of agricultural food supply. Besides, consumers lack the capability and resources required to check or report on the quality of agricultural goods in terms of defects or contamination. Consequently, customers are forced to decide whether to utilize or discard the goods. However, blockchain is an innovative framework capable of offering a transformative solution for the traceability of agricultural products and food supply chains. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework capable of tracking and monitoring all interactions and transactions between all stakeholders in the rice chain ecosystem through smart contracts. The model incorporates a system for customer satisfaction feedback, which enables all stakeholders to get up-to-date information on product quality, enabling them to make more informed supply chain decisions. Each transaction is documented and stored in the public ledger of the blockchain. The proposed framework provides a safe, efficient, reliable, and effective way to monitor and track rice products safety and quality especially during product purchasing. The security and performance analysis results shows that the proposed framework outperform the benchmark techniques in terms of cost-effectiveness, security and scalability with low computational overhead.

Life cycle inventory data for the Italian agri-food sector: background, sources and methodological aspects

Purpose For the development of any life cycle assessment study, the practitioner frequently integrates primary data collected on-field, with background data taken from various life cycle inventory databases which are part of most commercial LCA software packages. However, such data is often not generally applicable to all product systems since, especially concerning the agri-food sector, available datasets may not be fully representative of the site specificity of the food product under examination. In this context, the present work investigates the background, sources and methodological aspects that characterise the most known commercial databases containing agri-food data, with a focus on four agri-food supply chains (olive oil, wine, wheat products and citrus fruit), which represent an important asset for the Italian food sector. Methods Specifically, the paper entails a review of currently available LCI databases and their datasets with a twofold scope: firstly, to understand how agri-food data is modelled in these databases for a coherent and consistent representation of regional scenarios and to verify whether they are also suitable for the Italian context and, secondly, to identify and analyse useful and relevant methodological approaches implemented in the existing LCI databases when regional data are modelled. Results Based on the aforementioned review, it is possible to highlight some problems which may arise when developing an LCI pertaining to the four Italian agri-food supply chains, namely: 1. The need for specific inventory datasets to tackle the specificities of agri-food product systems. 2. The lack of datasets, within the existing DBs, related to the Italian context and to the abovementioned supply chains. In fact, at present, in the currently available LCI DBs, there are very few (or in some cases none) datasets related to Italian wine, olive oil, wheat-based products and citrus fruit. The few available datasets often contain some data related to the Italian context but also approximate data with that of product systems representing other countries. Furthermore, the present study allowed to identify and discuss the main aspects to be used as starting elements for modelling regional data to be included in a future Italian LCI database of the abovementioned four supply chains. Conclusions The results of the present study represent a starting point for the collection of data and its organisation, in order to develop an Italian LCI agri-food database with datasets which are representative of the regional specificities of four agri-food supply chains which play an important role in the Italian economy.

Food Loss and Waste

Sustainable production and consumption of food are vital for sustainable development. About one-third of all food produced for humans are either lost or wasted causing increased food insecurity and immense economic and social costs. In a world where famine has been an alarming issue, any action to reduce food loss and waste (FLW) is crucial. This chapter reviews, from a sustainable supply chain perspective, the extant literature on food supply chains and discusses FLW issues, especially within the context of sustainable consumption of fruits and vegetables. A framework for sustainable food supply chains (SFSCs) from both production and consumption ends are discussed. In doing so, such current disruptive intelligent technologies as blockchain and the internet of things are emphasized as potential enablers for SFSCs. Mainly driven by consumers' awareness of the pressing issues in the world and consumption behaviour, mitigating FLW in SFSCs would not only result in efficient land and water use but also positively impact climate change and livelihoods towards sustainable development.