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Blockchain-based traceability technology (BTT) is an emerging digital technology that claims to have the potential to fulfil the demand for traceability to safeguard fruit safety. Drawing on the technological, organisational and environmental (TOE) framework, this study aims to investigate the perceived facilitators and barriers that influence the behavioural intentions of multiple stakeholders in the Vietnamese fruit supply chain (i.e., farmers, trading enterprises and consumers) to adopt BTT.

This study utilised a qualitative approach of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 60 stakeholders in the Vietnamese fruit supply chain to achieve the research objectives. NVivo 12 was employed to analyse the collected data using content and thematic analysis.

The findings identify several perceived facilitators that motivate BTT adoption. These include trust, transparency, business performance, the formation of alliances, consumer awareness of food safety and ethical agricultural practices, fruit branding and the pivotal role of farmers' cooperatives. Meanwhile, the perceived barriers to BTT adoption include a lack of digital literacy amongst the stakeholders, poor organisational culture, the high cost of traceability-enabled products and data privacy and security governance.

This study suggests that technology awareness and perceived facilitators and barriers should be incorporated into the design and deployment of blockchain-based traceability technology in the agri-food supply chain in developing countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first qualitative paper that attempts to fill the research gap of understanding the perceived facilitators and barriers that influence the intentions of multiple stakeholders in the fruit supply chain to adopt BTT in the context of a developing economy.

Supply chains in new and emerging agricultural industries typically lack information linking product quality with consumer behaviour. This case study of the emerging persimmon industry in Australia and New Zealand demonstrates how adopting a supply chain orientation can address this situation. Assessing and modelling consumer response to product quality provides information that demonstrates to supply chain stakeholders how better product quality management can improve the performance of the whole chain. Emerging fruit industries, therefore, have more incentive to adopt a supply chain orientation if they understand quality‐related factors that drive consumer satisfaction and repeat buying behaviour.

This paper aims to bridge the concepts of innovation and performance and to develop a framework to assess innovation and performance in food chains.

Based on an extensive literature search the paper identifies critical success factors (CSFs) and related indicators for innovation in food chains, on the one hand, and performance in food chains, on the other. Main CSF categories for innovation are: product, process, market and organization. Main CSF categories for performance are: efficiency, responsiveness, quality and flexibility. A chain process model is developed that enables one to identify main chain processes that impact on innovation and performance. A trade‐off matrix is constructed in which effects of innovations on performance and vice versa in typical chain processes can be identified.

This article reviewed available supply‐chain innovation and performance indicators and models and methods used to assess performance and innovation within fruit supply chains. Based on the existing literature a conceptual framework for assessing innovation and performance of companies in the European fruit supply chain has been developed. The framework consists of a supply chain process model and an innovation‐performance matrix which have been successfully applied to several cases along the apple chain in The Netherlands.

The chain process model and matrix are applied in an integrated way to the Dutch fruit chain. An apple grower case and a fruit cooperative case are worked out. Managers in food chains can use the framework to assess their company's innovations and performances.

The paper aims to bridge the concepts of innovation and performance. Literature and research on this subject are minimal.

Based on a sample of 308 enterprises, this paper studies the determinants of export organic supply chain performance. The results indicate seven positive determinants that influence positively the supply chain performance, including: (i) need-satisfying ability (NSA), (ii) relationship management, (iii) information management, (iv) quality management, (v) coordination and cooperation mechanisms, (vi) operation management, and (vii) marketing strategy of the export organic supply chain. In contrast, the differentiated segmentation strategy and cost strategy have no impact on the export organic supply chain performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify which innovation implementation strategies have the highest success potential, and which factors affect the adoption of fruit‐related innovations by consumers. The authors focus on consumer‐driven and responsive fruit supply chains.

The authors propose a new conceptual framework that links fruit consumption to innovation implementation strategies. A total of 36 experts in four panels organised, respectively, in Spain, Poland, Greece, and The Netherlands evaluated the elements of the proposed framework.

“Market orientation” and “continuous learning and knowledge acquisition” surfaced as the innovation implementation strategies with the highest success potential. However, the optimal mix of strategies depends on the particular innovation as well as the geographic and cultural characteristics of the targeted consumer population. Furthermore, improving technological competence is the single most important factor affecting fruit innovation adoption.

The reported results are derived from four small groups of purposefully chosen experts and supply chain stakeholders. Nevertheless, they provide new insights useful to policy makers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.

In designing innovations, fruit chain actors should first and foremost consider the price premium consumers will have to pay. Furthermore, for some innovations geographic or cultural characteristics become very important. Therefore, fruit supply chains should design their innovation implementation strategies accordingly.

By adopting efficiently designed innovation implementation strategies, consumer‐driven fruit supply chains will convince consumers to eat more fruit. Thus, given the critical contribution of fruit consumption to human health, an important social goal is achieved.

While the literature on innovation is enormous, very little has been published on innovation implementation strategies adopted by consumer‐driven and responsive fruit chains. The significance of addressing the previously mentioned issues stems from the need to increase fruit consumption in Europe, which lags behind the levels suggested by physicians and nutrition scientists. Fruit‐related innovations are a useful means to achieving this goal.

This paper aims to present a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) optimization problem for a perishable agricultural product to achieve three pillars of sustainability, including minimizing total network costs and carbon dioxide emissions from different network activities and maximizing responsiveness to demands simultaneously.

The research problem is formulated as a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model, and classical approaches, including the LP-Metric and weighted Tchebycheff method, have been applied to solve the optimization model. A set of test problems has been proposed to validate the model, and the results are presented.

Computational time to find Pareto optimal solutions by using the weighted Tchebycheff method was twice as much as that of the LP-Metric method. Also, the result of the study is a mathematical model that can be applied to other products that are close to the fruit, such as vegetables.

The present study is limited to fruits supply chains and the inventory is considered at the distribution centers only. The study also considers only one type of transport.

The paper can assist supply chain managers to define strategies to achieve a sustainable CLSC network configuration for the fruits.

This study is one of the early studies to consider environmental indicators in fruits supply chain design along with two other indicators of sustainability, namely, economic and social indicators. Therefore, this can help supply chain managers to achieve sustainability by optimizing location decisions, inventory quantities and flow between facilities.

The main aim of this study is to explore the appropriate factors in measuring COVID-19-induced supply chain disruptions and the impact of these disruptions on the economic vulnerability of small-scale farmers in Sri Lanka.

The findings revealed that most of the farmers have continued to cultivate even during the pandemic despite several challenges which affected their economic status. Therefore, it is concluded that COVID-19-induced transportation and demand disruptions exacerbated the economic vulnerability of small-scale farmers over the disruptions in supply and production.

The findings of this study are crucial for formulating novel policies to improve the sustainability of the Sri Lankan agricultural sector and alleviate the poverty level of Agri-communities in the countryside. As farming is a vital sector in the economy, increased attention ought to be given on facilitating farmers with government-encouraged loans or allowances for their financial stability. Further, the respective government authorities should develop programs for importing and distributing adequate quantities of fertilizers among all the farmers at controlled prices so that they can continue their operations without any interruption. Moreover, the government could engage in collaboratively work with private organizations to streamline the Agri-input supply process. There should be a government initiative for critical consideration of the issues of farming families and their continued motivation to engage in agriculture. Thus, farmers' livelihoods and agricultural prosperity could be upgraded through alternative Agri-inputs and marketing strategies, providing financial assistance, encouraging innovative technology, etc.

Despite the significance and vulnerability of the vegetable and fruit sector in Sri Lanka, there is a limitation in the empirical studies conducted on the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 measures and their implications on the farmers' livelihood. Furthermore, previous empirical research has not employed adequate quantitative tools to analyze the situation or appropriate variables in evaluating COVID-19-induced disruptions. Hence, the current study explored the appropriate factors for measuring COVID-19-induced supply chain disruption using exploratory factor analysis. Then, the impact of those factors on the economic vulnerability of the small scale farmers was revealed through the ordinal logistics regression analysis.

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.

Over the years, the fruit and vegetable supply chain has encountered several challenges. From the harvesting stage until it reaches the consumer, a significant portion of fruits and vegetables gets wasted in the supply chain. As a result, the present study attempts to identify and analyze the growth barriers in the fresh produce supply chain (FPSC) in the Indian context.

An integrated grey theory and DEMATEL based approach is used to analyze growth barriers in the FPSC. The growth barriers were analyzed and sorted based on their influence and importance relations.

The results emphasize that the most critical growth barriers in the FPSC that should be addressed to ensure food waste reduction are as follows: Lack of cold chain facilities (B2), lack of transportation or logistic facilities (B1), lack of collaboration and information sharing between supply chain partners (B3), lack of proper quality and safety protocols (B15), a lack of processing and packaging facilities (B14), and poor productivity and efficiency (B13). Results are also verified by conducting a sensitivity analysis.

The results are highly useful for policymakers to exploit growth barriers within the FPSC that require more attention. The obtained results show that the managers and policymakers need to utilize more funds to develop the cold chain facilities and logistics facilities to develop the FPSC. By improving the cold chain facilities, it is possible to improve the quality of food, make the food safe for human consumption, reduce waste, and increase the efficiency and productivity of the supply chain. Also, this study may encourage policymakers and industrial managers to adopt the most influential SCM practices for food waste reduction.

Many researchers have attempted to analyze the causes of food waste and growth barriers in the FPSC using various decision-making methods. Still, no attempts are made to explore the causal relations among various growth barriers in FPSC through the integrated Grey-DEMATEL technique. Also, we devise policy implications in the light of the new farm bills or the Indian agricultural acts of 2020. Lack of cold chain facilities (B2) was found to be the critical driving barrier in the FPSC, as it influences multiple barriers. Also, there is a dire need for cold chain facilities and transportation systems to enhance productivity and efficiency.

In this paper, a conceptual and methodological framework based on empirical evidence derived from the case of the Colombian Cape gooseberry (CG) supply chain is presented. Using this case study, this paper aims to contribute to the extant literature on the internationalization of food supply chains by explicitly considering the alignment of quality attributes and supply chain complexity as key elements to understand the process.

This research has been designed to be qualitative, inductive and exploratory, thus involving multiple data gathering methods and tools. More specifically, during the first stage of the empirical analysis, this study has mapped and analysed preferences and perceptions of product quality at both the consumer and supply chain levels. Then, this paper has analysed the degree of alignment and complexity in the supply chain and finally, this study has derived scenarios for the internationalization of the supply chain.

The results indicate tensions between supply chain actors related to quality attribute alignment and complexity, which have the potentials to impact the internationalization scenarios of the CG supply chain. Particularly the findings highlight how alignment and complexity of sourcing and product quality attributes can affect supply chain design strategies in different internationalization pathways of a niche food commodity.

The findings have implications in terms of supply chain design perspectives. In fact, while an approach, which would consider only a transactional or governance perspective would have tackled the problems of misalignment – for example, between farmers and wholesalers or wholesalers and international traders/retailers – it would have ignored the problem of alignment caused at the retailing and consumption stage. In the attempt to internationalize the CG supply chain, farmers, processors and traders are misaligned in relation to the preferences of the targeted final consumers, Dutch/Western European consumers in the case.

Given the misalignment issues, this paper identifies a step by step approach as the most suitable pathway to design an internationalized supply chain because it allows the CG commodity supply chain to develop the potential market of credence quality-attribute by supporting the health-promoting compounds of the fruit. In this way, the CG supply chain could also progressively scale up and work on solving its misalignment issues by building a coordination structure of the chain, with quality control and logistics likely led by large retailers.

The study indicates that a process of internalization related to a scenario of a “globalized commodity” can only emerge through processes of coordination and integration at the production level, likely led by forms of producers (farmers) associations or a network of producers and traders, leading to strong marketing activities and scale up in terms of volumes. This has profound social implications and calls for rethinking how this study designs the internationalization of niche commodity supply chains.

Through the application of a mixed methodology approach, in which conceptual, qualitative and quantitative methods have been combined, this paper has been able to identify alternative scenarios to the internationalization and the scale-up of a niche food commodity supply chain, with implications for its design and governance. More specifically in the conceptual model, the different scenarios have been related to the risk of misalignment. The model also identifies alternative pathways of internationalization which may or may not arise according to the way complexity unfolds. In the approach, this study has unpacked complexity by looking into two key dimensions: transactional complexity and quality-attribute complexity.