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This chapter explores the potential economic advantages and disadvantages of reusable plastic containers (RPCs) in the transport of fresh produce from growers to retail stores. The empirical research linking packaging to quantifiable economic and social benefits is reviewed. This study answers the question – what are the economic and social impacts of increased standardization of bulk packaging in the North American fresh produce supply chains? Implications for the potential use of RPCs and its impact on sustainability are explored.

The chapter describes data from grocery retailers who have implemented both one-way and reusable plastic containers for fresh produce distribution. A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TD-ABC) analysis was conducted to capture and evaluate process times and product damage associated with the typical deployment of bulk containers in the grocery retailers’ distribution centers (DC), retail stores, and asset recovery centers of the supply chain. Economic measures were implemented and together with the social dimensions provided insights about sustainability-based implications.

Fresh produce shipments using the RPC technology had significantly less waste and damage representing potential social and economic benefits. The empirical findings included results about the economic impact of RPCs on the sustainability level of a typical supply chain for fresh food products.

The quantification of the economic and potential social sustainability for the explored packaging types constitutes an important contribution. Much of the previous research did not contain comprehensive assessments. The impact of technological change – the introduction and use of RPC in packaging – is examined. In addition, the supply chain scope for this research included most of the major activities that involve the packaging of fresh produce commodities in its practical dynamics.

This chapter compares and discusses the 10 sustainability-oriented food supply chain innovations described in the previous chapters. Our purpose is to address and reflect on the questions and challenges introduced in the first chapter.

The cases are first analyzed in terms of the extent to which the innovations were motivated and impacted the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainability. The various sustainable food supply chain practices adopted are compared. The third section explores the innovation strategies used in the cases, including the type of strategy, the breadth and level of innovativeness of the strategy, the governance approach, and the extent of capability development required. The final section presents our conclusions.

The results suggest that to become truly sustainable, companies need to adopt a broad set of practices that address all three dimensions of sustainability, and develop strategies to make the sustainability-oriented innovation economically viable. The more radical and systemic the innovation, the more difficult it is to generate these outcomes.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the application of blockchain to agri-food supply chains, including key issues and trends. It examines the state of the art and conceptual structure of the field and proposes an agenda to guide future research.

This article performs a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer software on a sample of 205 articles from the WoS database to identify research trend topics.

The number of publications in this area has increased since 2020, which shows a growing research interest. The research hotspots are related to the integration of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain for traceability, coordination between all actors involved, transparency of operations and improvement of food safety. Furthermore, this is linked to sustainability and the achievement of the sustainable development gtoals (SDGs), while addressing key challenges in the implementation of blockchain-based technologies in the agri-food supply chain.

The application of blockchain in the agri-food supply chain may consider four key aspects. Firstly, the implementation of blockchain can improve the traceability of food products. Secondly, this technology supports sustainability issues and could avoid disruptions in the agri-food supply chain. Third, blockchain improves food quality and safety control throughout the supply chain. Fourthly, the findings show that regulation is needed to improve trust between stakeholders.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the blockchain phenomenon in the agri-food supply chain by optimising the search criteria. Moreover, it serves to bridge to future research by identifying gaps in the field.

Blockchain technology (BCT) has emerged as a powerful tool for enhancing transparency and trust. However, the relationship between the benefits of BCT and agri-food supply chain performance (AFSCperf) remains underexplored. Therefore, the current study investigates the influence of BCT on AFSCperf and sustainability issues.

Through a comprehensive literature review, various benefits of BCT are identified. Subsequently, a research framework is proposed based on data collected from questionnaire surveys and personal visits to professionals in the agri-food industry. The proposed framework is validated using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The findings reveal that BCT positively impacts AFSCperf by improving traceability, transparency, food safety and quality, immutability and trust. Additionally, BCT adoption enhances stakeholder collaboration, provides a decentralised network, improves data accessibility and yields a better return on investment, resulting in the overall improvement in AFSCperf and socio-economic sustainability.

This study offers valuable practical insights for practitioners and academicians, establishing empirical links between the benefits of BCT and AFSCperf and providing a deeper understanding of BCT adoption.

Stakeholders, managers, policymakers and technology providers can leverage these findings to optimise the benefits of BCT in enhancing AFSCperf. Moreover, it utilises rigorous theoretical and empirical approaches, drawing on a multidisciplinary perspective encompassing food operations and supply chain literature, public policy, information technology, strategy, organisational theory and sustainability.

This study deals with the examination, classification and ranking of the food industry supply chain in Mazandaran Free Economic Zone from a sustainability perspective and its effect on international entrepreneurship. The findings can help international decision-makers and entrepreneurs better understand their decision-making processes. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and Matrix-based Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) methods is an export-oriented method. The indicators are determined based on the definitive opinion of experts. Indicators in this research were selected using fuzzy Delphi with 99% accuracy. A combination of ISM–MICMAC methods were used based on sustainable facts in the food supply chain. The developed classify the factors practical on the sustainable supply chain. The findings showed that minimising the total cost, improvement of health and safety, environmentally friendly packaging, use of environmentally friendly materials and minimising the use of synthetic fertilisers were among the linkage factors. Factors that reduce energy costs, the possibility of immediate customer response and social services were among the dependent factors. Since free economic zones have been established to attract international investment, exploit new technologies, create new job opportunities and increase export capacity, the focus on reducing costs and the ability to respond immediately to customers and providing social services can result in the creation of a suitable business position for international investment and attracting international entrepreneurs.

Corona Virus Disease (Covid-19) is a global pandemic that emerged at the end of 2019 and caused disruptions in global supply chains, particularly in the food supply chains that exposed the vulnerability of today’s food supply chain in a major disruption which provided a unique research opportunity. This review explores the current research direction for food supply chain resilience and identifies gaps for future research in preparing for future major global pandemics.

This article presents a review of food supply chain resilience followed a systematic literature review of the business and management-based studies related to the food supply chain in Covid-19 published between December 2019 and December 2021 to identify the immediate issues and responses that need to be addressed in the event of future disruptions in food supply chains due to new global health threats.

The study revealed the need for more literature on food supply chain resilience, particularly resilience to a major global pandemic. The study also uncovered the sequence of events in a major pandemic and identified some strategies for building resilience to potential future risks of such an event.

The limitations of this study are apparent. Firstly, the selection of databases is not comprehensive. Due to time limitations, authoritative publishers such as Springer, Emerald, Wiley and Taylor & Francis were not selected. Secondly, a single author completed the literature quality testing and text analysis, possibly reducing the credibility of the results due to subjective bias. Thirdly, the selected literature are the studies published during the immediate event of Covid-19, and before January 2022, other research studies may have been completed but were still in the state of auditing at this time.

This paper is the first study that provides a detailed classification of the immediate challenges to the food supply chain faced in both upstream and downstream nodes during a major global disruption. For researchers, this clearly shows the immediate difficulties faced at each node of the food supply chain, which provides research topics for future studies.

This study aims to uncover apple preference and consumption in Indonesia, to disclose the risk of non-halal contamination of apples and the importance of maintaining the halal integrity of apples along the supply chain and to uncover the impacts of food miles of apples along supply chain segmentation.

This study adopted mixed research methods under a fully mixed sequential dominant status design (QUAN → qual). Data were collected through a survey in some Indonesian provinces (N = 396 respondents). Samples were collected randomly from individual consumers. The qualitative data were collected through interviews with 15 apple traders in Indonesia. Data were analysed using crosstab, chi-square and descriptive analysis.

First, Muslim consumers believe in the risk of chemical treatment of apples because it can affect the halal status of apples. Second, Indonesian consumers consider the importance of halal certification of chemical-treated apples and the additives for apple treatments. Third, the insignificance of domestic apple preference contributes to longer food miles at the first- and middle-mile stages (preference for imported apples). Fourth, apple consumption and shopping distance contribute to the longer food miles problem at the last-mile stage. Fifth, longer food miles have negative impacts, such as emissions and pollution, food loss and waste, food insecurity, financial loss, slow development of the local economy and food unsafety.

This research has implications for the governments, farmers, consumers (society) and business sectors.

This study proposes a framework of food miles under a halal supply chain (halal food miles) to reduce the risk of food miles and improve halal integrity. The findings from this research have theoretical implications for the development of the food mile theory, halal food supply chain and green supply chain.

This chapter introduces the volume’s theme by describing the challenges of sustainability in the agri-food industry and the critical role of agri-food supply chains. Following a description of traditional and sustainable supply chain management practices, we discuss the likely characteristics of sustainability-oriented innovations and how organizations pursuing higher levels of economic, social, and environmental performance will need to adapt their capabilities.

Drawing on the emerging concepts and practices from sustainable supply chain management as well as traditional and emerging concepts from innovation, we develop general propositions and expectations about how organizations might address sustainable effectiveness in their supply chains. The importance of the agri-food industry to all three pillars of sustainable effectiveness and predictions about the inability to feed future populations gives the discussion a certain urgency.

Sustainability-oriented innovations in the agri-food supply chain are different from traditional innovations. We develop propositions regarding the driving motivations, their nature and scope (i.e., more radical and systemic than incremental and focused), and the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach. The 10 cases presented in the volume are summarized.

The Agri-Food supply chain (AFSC) conventionally suffers from multifaceted transparency, integration, traceability, product quality, and many more. Recently, various digital technologies have emerged, which reflect the potential to address the majority of such concerns. This chapter is an effort toward developing a vision for the future of the agri-food supply chain through digitalization. The technologies prominently covered in the chapter are the internet of things (IoT), blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI). Different challenges the agri-food supply chain participants perceived in implementing digital technologies were identified through literature review and primary survey. The significant challenges are trained workforce, funds availability, and clarity on economic gains from digitalisation. In conclusion, few strategies toward the implementation of digital technologies in agri-food supply chains are discussed.

Food supply chain transparency and traceability is very important to address the issue regarding quality and safety. In traditional tracing system, with increasing the complexity of supply chain making product recalls difficult to manage and putting human lives at risk. To eliminate such types of risks, blockchain technology gives more efficient and reliable system for food tracing. Recently, there is an exponential rise in adoption of blockchain technology and most disparate IOT (Internet of things) devices in agriculture and food supply chain. It is an evolving technology that comforts the food supply chains by providing transparent data records and manage the food movement in the chain using distributed (P2P) network. That is more secured and there's no need for third party verifications. Our focus in this research will be on the Indian wheat supply chain and issues related to food losses caused by a lack of transparency and traceability. In order to improve the transparency of the wheat supply chain, we created an end-to-end smart wheat supply chain solution that combines blockchain technology, NFC tags, IoTs, and smart contracts. The solution is supported by entity relationship diagrams, information and money flow sequence diagrams, and a blockchain network diagram. We also used a security algorithm and the “NFC-Tag writer by NXP” program to validate and assess our system. This work could serve as a springboard for more in-depth research in this area. Depending on the existing situation in the industry, this research can also advise corporate procedures to deploy blockchain-based applications in the supply chain and logistics industry.