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This paper analyzes the advance selling and pricing strategies of fresh products supply chain where the e-retailer provides wholesale contract or agency contract to the fresh products supplier.

This paper constructed a two-period sequential-move game of fresh products supply chain members.

This analysis showed that the supply chain members had different preferences for contracts under different market conditions. The advance selling of fresh products was not a decision of the seller, but also required the support of other supply chain members. And the advance selling strategy was not always beneficial to all supply chain parties. Under the two contracts, there were market conditions in which the profits of supply chain members were Pareto-improved through the implementation of advance selling.

The model presented in this study focuses solely on the context of monopoly, overlooking the competition from alternative suppliers or retailers. Consequently, exploring the competitive landscape within the fresh products supply chain, particularly in relation to pre-sale pricing, emerges as a crucial avenue for further investigation. By employing empirical research methods, valuable insights are gleaned, thereby significantly augmenting the existing body of relevant theories.

The decision to pre-sell fresh products should be based on market conditions. Supply chain members can control production costs and fresh products circulation losses to maximize profits.

From the perspective of game theory, this study analyzed the optimal advance selling and pricing strategies of fresh products supply chain members under two kinds of contracts. These results can provide practical implications for fresh products suppliers and e-retailers.

“Originally as a business providing community life services since its founding in 2017, Dingdong (Cayman) has transformed itself into a fresh e-commerce company. After making adjustments to its business model and operating strategy for three times, Dingdong (Cayman) has completed the strategic transition from grocery surrogate shopping to comprehensive self-operation, and built its own commercial fortress. In 2019, the total revenue of the company was five billion yuan. Upon the outbreak of COVID-19, its monthly revenue exceeded 1.2 billion yuan in February 2020, and the year's total revenue was expected to hit 15∼18 billion yuan. To date, Dingdong (Cayman) has formed a supply chain fully based on digital operation and built a commercial fortress in the fresh e-commerce industry. Despite this, its future prospect is not free from challenge. This case mainly deals with the following questions: How about the strategic positioning and core competitiveness of Dingdong (Cayman) in its early days? In the process of rapid expansion, what are the advantages and problems in its business model? How can the digitally operated supply chain support its continuous expansion in the future?”

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 study investigates how food safety trust works as a critical moderator in the Chinese online fresh agricultural market based on an extended technology acceptance model.

The authors propose a research model that integrates attributes from the technology acceptance model, perceived product quality, logistics service quality, risk, and food safety trust. Structural equation modeling was applied to estimate the causal relationships using data from 851 Chinese customers.

The results indicated that perceived usefulness, product quality, and logistics service quality significantly enhance Chinese customers' intention to shop online for fresh agricultural products. Further, the positive effects increase when customer trust in food safety changes from low to high. In contrast, perceived risk reduces Chinese customers' willingness to engage in online shopping, but the negative influence is weaker for customers with high trust in food safety than for those with low trust. However, perceived ease of use plays an insignificant role in predicting online purchase intention and the impact does not vary depending on food safety trust.

This study suggests managers should consider the important moderating role of food safety trust to make effective strategies for fresh agricultural e-commerce development in China.

Fresh product loss rates in supply chain operations are particularly high due to the nature of perishable products. The purpose of this paper is to maximize profit through the contract between retailer and supplier. The optimized prices for the retailer and the supplier, taking the fresh-keeping effort into consideration, are derived.

To address this issue, the authors consider a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a retailer and a supplier (i.e. wholesaler) for two scenarios: centralized and decentralized decision making. The authors start from investigating the optimal decision in the centralized supply chain and then comparing the results with those of the decentralized decision. Meanwhile, a fresh-keeping cost-sharing contract and a fresh-keeping cost- and revenue-sharing contract are designed. Numerical examples are provided, and managerial insights are discussed at the end.

The results show that the centralized decision is more profitable than the decentralized decision; a fresh product supply chain (FPSC) can only be coordinated through a fresh-keeping cost- and revenue-sharing contract; the optimal retail price, wholesale price and fresh-keeping effort can all be achieved; and the profit of a FPSC is positively related to consumers’ sensitivity to freshness and negatively correlated with their sensitivity to price.

This research is based on the assumption that demand is relatively stable. It has not addressed when demand is stochastic.

The findings would be useful for managers in fresh food sector in terms of how to deal with suppliers in order to maximize total profit while also provide freshest food to the customers.

Few studies have considered fresh-keeping effort as a decision variable in the modelling of supply chain. In this paper, a mathematical model for the fresh-keeping effort and for price decisions in a supply chain is developed. In particular, fresh-keeping cost-sharing contract and revenue-sharing contract are examined simultaneously in the study of the supply chain coordination problem.

The purpose of this paper is to produce fish nugget from fresh or smoked fish and to investigate the quality characteristics of fish nuggets during refrigerated storage.

The study was designed to evaluate the effect of fresh and smoked fish on the storage quality parameters of fish nuggets. The products were developed by incorporating optimum level of fresh and smoked separately and were vacuum packaged in low-density polyethylene pouches and assessed for various storage quality parameters under refrigerated (2±1°C) conditions for 27 days of storage. The products were evaluated for various chemical, microbiological and sensory parameters at regular interval of three day.

Nuggets from smoked fish had lower (p<0.05) moisture, higher fat and crude protein compared to fresh fish nuggets. Total volatile basic nitrogen for fresh nugget samples exceeded the limit value of 30 mg N/100 g fish muscle on the 24 days of storage. At the end of storage period, TBA values were 2.8 mg malonaldehyde/kg for fresh nugget samples and 2.1 mg malonaldehyde/kg for smoked nugget samples. Microbial counts were found to be significantly (p<0.05) higher in fresh nugget than in smoked nugget samples. Sensory quality scores of smoked nuggets were significantly higher, than fresh nugget. The shelf life of fish nugget was found to be 24 days for fresh nuggets and 27 days for smoked nugget samples according to sensory assessment results.

The paper has demonstrated that the smoked fish meat prouduce nuggets of better quality, as indicated by lower microbial counts and higher sensory attributes compared to fresh fish meat.

In this paper, we provide a simple conceptual framework with empirical analysis to investigate the effect of product attributes and e-vendor characteristics that are potentially included in the online shopper’s information search on their online shopping behavior in China.

This paper examines consumers’ online shopping frequency for food/grocery using an ordered logit model and for fresh food (a subcategory of food/grocery) using a two-part model, considering product attributes, e-vendor characteristics, and consumer perceptions and characteristics.

The results show that product origin is an influencing factor in shopping for fresh food online, reflecting consumers’ growing interests in imported food or specialty food from other areas. Consumers are more likely to shop online for fresh food if they perceive online shopping as having a price advantage. But consumers who view price as a top factor are less likely to buy fresh food online frequently. Thus competitive prices might be a motive for online fresh food shopping, but consumers concerned about price do not necessarily shop frequently. Negative perceptions of product freshness reduce consumers’ likelihood and frequency of shopping for fresh food online. Concerns on food quality and e-vendors’ credibility prevent consumers from frequently shopping for fresh food online. Social and demographic characteristics also influence consumers’ decisions.

This paper provides a better understanding of consumer’s online grocery shopping preferences and sheds light on policy and regulation design and implementation in the e-commerce industry, which will ultimately protect and benefit consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review of the fresh produce supply chain management (FSCM). FSCM includes the processes from the production to consumption of fresh produce (fruits, flowers and vegetables).

Literature review is done by systematically collecting the existing literature over a period of 20 years (1989‐2009) and classifying it on the basis of structural attributes such as problem context, methodology and the product under consideration. The literature is also categorized according to the geographic region and year of publication.

There is an increase in interest towards FSCM still there is an absence of a journal with the prime attention towards FSCM. The key finding of this review is that the main interest is towards consumer satisfaction and revenue maximization with post‐harvest waste reduction being a secondary objective. It is revealed from the review that most of the literature is fragmented and is in silos. Lack of demand forecasting, demand and supply mismatch, lesser integrated approach etc are the major causes of concerns.

The authors have taken only the fresh produce (fruits, flowers and vegetables), authors may also look at other perishable items such as milk, meat, etc.

Result shows a product‐problem‐methodology mapping which may serve as a framework for the managers addressing issues in FSCM.

Most of the prior literature reviews are focused on a specific issue such as production planning or inventory management and ignore the broader perspective. There exists a need of having a detailed literature review covering all the operational issues in FSCM. This review fills this gap in the FSCM literature.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a new dynamic coupled discrete-element contact model used for investigating fresh concrete with different grades and different motion states, and demonstrate its correctness and reliability according to the rheological property results of flow fresh concrete in different working states through simulating the slump process and mixing process.

To accurately express the motion and force of flowing fresh concrete in different working states from numerical analysis, a dynamic coupled discrete-element contact model is proposed for fresh concrete of varying strength. The fluid-like fresh concrete is modelled as a two-phase fluid consisting of mortar and aggregate. Depending on the contact forms of the aggregate and mortar, the model is of one of the five types, namely, Hertz–Mindlin, pendular LB contact, funicular mucous contact, capillary LB contact or slurry lift/drag contact.

To verify the accuracy of this contact model, concrete slump and cross-vane rheometer tests are simulated using the traditional LB model and dynamic coupled contact model, for five concrete strengths. Finally, by comparing the simulation results from the two different contact models with experimental data, it is found that those from the proposed contact model are closer to the experimental data.

This contact model could be used to address issues such as (a) the mixing, transportation and pumping of fresh concrete, (b) deeper research and discussion on the influence of fresh concrete on the dynamic performance of agitated-transport vehicles, (c) the behaviour of fresh concrete in mixing tanks and (d) the abrasion of concrete pumping pipes.

To accurately express the motion and force of flowing fresh concrete in different working states from numerical analysis, a dynamic coupled discrete-element contact model is proposed for fresh concrete of varying strength.