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Perishable inventory management for the grocery sector has become more challenging with extended omnichannel activities and emerging consumer expectations. This paper aims to identify and formalize key performance measures of omnichannel perishable inventory management (OCPI) and explore the influence of operational and market-related factors on these measures.

The inductive approach of this research synthesizes three performance measures (product waste, lost sales and freshness) and four influencing factors (channel effect, demand variability, product perishability and shelf life visibility) for OCPI, through industry investigation, expert interviews and a systematic literature review. Treating OCPI as a complex adaptive system and considering its transaction costs, this paper formalizes the OCPI performance measures and their influencing factors in two statements and four propositions, which are then tested through numerical analysis with simulation.

Product waste, lost sales and freshness are identified as distinctive OCPI performance measures, which are influenced by product perishability, shelf life visibility, demand variability and channel effects. The OCPI sensitivity to those influencing factors is diverse, whereas those factors are found to moderate each other's effects.

To manage perishables more effectively, with less waste and lost sales for the business and fresher products for the consumer, omnichannel firms need to consider store and online channel requirements and strive to reduce demand variability, extend product shelf life and facilitate item-level shelf life visibility. While flexible logistics capacity and dynamic pricing can mitigate demand variability, the product shelf life extension needs modifications in product design, production, or storage conditions. OCPI executives can also increase the product shelf life visibility through advanced stock monitoring/tracking technologies (e.g. smart tags or more comprehensive barcodes), particularly for the online channel which demands fresher products.

This paper provides a novel theoretical view on perishables in omnichannel systems. It specifies the OCPI performance, beyond typical inventory policies for cost minimization, while discussing its sensitivity to operations and market factors.

Shelf‐life of cultured milk products is longer than milk but it is still limited. Shelf‐life of cultured milk products could be enhanced by adopting various techniques. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the longer shelf‐life thus attained would extend the market reach and would be economically beneficial to both producers and consumers.

Attempt has been made to enlighten the various techniques such as bacteriocin (nisin, Microgard^TM, natamycin, etc.), lactoperoxidase‐thiocyanate‐hydrogen peroxide system (LP‐system), high pressure treatment, post‐production heat‐treatment (thermization, microwave heating), ultra‐violet (UV) irradiation, carbonization, etc.

Application of more than one bacteriocin may be advantageous to minimize the possibility of survival of microflora resistant to a particular bacteriocin. Pasteurization, being more detrimental to dietetic properties of cultured milk products than thermization, its application is not suggested as a method of preservation. Microwave heating may be better than conventional pasteurization.

Conjugated application of various techniques would be more efficacious in extending the shelf‐life of cultured milk products. Extension in shelf‐life of cultured milk products would be economically beneficial for producers and consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with an optimal consolidation problem for fresh agricultural products (e.g. fruits and vegetables) in a multi-temperature joint distribution (MTJD) system that is developed to resolve the challenge of timely delivery of small and diverse shipments in food cold chains.

An integer programming optimization model is developed to consolidate a set of agricultural shipments with different storage requirements into a number of distinct containers according to the classification criteria. The formulated model for consolidating fresh agricultural products is evaluated using numerical examples.

Critical factors that affect the quality or shelf life of fresh agricultural products are examined to form the criteria for classifying the storage requirements of these products. The formulated model can minimize the consolidation cost and the loss of product value due to a reduction in shelf life after consolidation.

Although the decision model for product consolidation developed in this paper takes into account practical concerns as much as possible, some additional conditions in the cold chain of fresh fruits and vegetables can be included to further enhance the application of the proposed consolidation model.

Provided that the container environment is appropriately controlled, the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables can be maintained during the logistics process. As a result, product quality can be managed to reduce product loss.

This paper adopts temperature, relative humidity and ethylene production, which generally affect the quality and shelf life of fresh agricultural products, as the main factors for determining the product consolidation. It is among the first to deal with the optimal consolidation of fresh agricultural products in the MTJD system with the consideration of product shelf life.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how shelf-life labelling affects the sensory acceptability of potato snacks.

The panel of assessors determined the key sensory attributes. Subsequently, affective sensory consumer testing was conducted. The samples of potato snacks with labels suggesting valid and false shelf life or without dating information were presented to 110 students. They rated the degree of colour intensity, oxidised flavour and crispness liking with the use of hedonic scale and accepted or rejected the sample. The testing was carried out in a sensory laboratory.

Shelf-life labelling affects the overall acceptability of potato snacks, perception of crispness and oxidative flavour. These attributes were rated less favourably when the label suggested post-expiration. The influence of shelf-life labelling decreased with storage time period. Consumers are more willing to trust their own perception than labelling.

The product may be rejected not only because of quality depletion when the shelf life is overestimated, but also as a result of denigration when the shelf life is underestimated.

Date legislation is necessary but it may be not sufficient without consumer education on food labelling and safety.

Research on the influence of shelf-life labelling on the sensory acceptability of food is scarce. Understanding how consumers are affected by shelf-life information has important implications for both public policy as well as food manufacturers.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether an existing sourcing strategy can effectively supply products of appropriate quality with acceptable levels of product waste if applied to an international perishable product supply chain. The authors also analyse whether the effectiveness of this sourcing strategy can be improved by including costs for expected shelf life losses while generating order policies.

The performance of sourcing strategies is examined in a prototype international strawberry supply chain. Appropriate order policies were determined using parameters both with and without costs for expected shelf life losses. Shelf life losses during transport and storage were predicted using microbiological growth models. The performance of the resulting policies was assessed using a hybrid discrete event chain simulation model that includes continuous quality decay.

The study's findings reveal that the order policies obtained with standard cost parameters result in poor product quality and large amounts of product waste. Also, including costs for expected shelf life losses in sourcing strategies significantly reduces product waste and improves product quality, although transportation costs rise.

The study shows that in perishable product supply chain design a trade-off should be made between transportation costs, shortage costs, inventory costs, product waste, and expected shelf life losses.

By presenting a generically applicable methodology for perishable product supply chain design, the authors contribute to research and practice efforts to reduce food waste. Furthermore, product quality information is included in supply chain network design, a research area that is still in its infancy.

Short shelf‐life grocery goods present some of the biggest challenges for supply chain management due to a high number of product variants, strict traceability requirements, short shelf‐life of the products, the need for temperature control in the supply chain, and the large volume of goods handled. A Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based data capture system can help solve the problems associated with the logistics of short shelf life products. This article discusses the potential of utilising RFID technology for increasing efficiency in the supply chain of short shelf life products. The focus of this article is a RFID trial conducted at Sainsbury’s, which is discussed to study the potential benefits of RFID for short shelf‐life products retailers. Further this article analyses the potential impact of RFID for other supply chain participants. We conclude that when applied with recyclable transport containers, RFID investments can provide quick amortisation of capital whilst offering a range of operational benefits.

The technology of time temperature integrators (TTI) is used to ensure the safety and quality of temperature sensitive goods such as food and drugs along their entire lifespan. This work aims to provide a better understanding of potential benefits that can be expected from the use of TTIs in terms of supply chain improvement.

Based on the different types of information provided by TTIs: information on products' freshness and information on products' remaining shelf lives, the paper identifies qualitatively the benefits that would stem from each type of information.

A framework is built to evaluate the benefits, in terms of cost reduction and/or quality service improvement, that would stem from information provided by TTIs. Illustrative models are also developed in order to quantify some of these benefits.

The coexistence on products' packaging of a printed use by date and a TTI device can be misleading for consumers. Besides, the benefits that supply chain actors will achieve by using TTIs will vary by product category and are dependent upon the level at which the TTI device is used. Further research and case studies have to be developed in order to bring further answers to these issues.

This paper is one of the first studies that helps companies in the food and the health care industry to better understand the benefits of using TTIs from an operations management point of view and to evaluate whether it can be advantageous to deploy this technology or not.

This work differs from investigations in literature in that it identifies exhaustively and qualitatively the benefits of TTIs and to give perspectives for quantitative models that can be developed to assess these benefits.

The purpose of this study was to prepare alginate and chitosan-based edible coatings incorporating Schinus terebinthifolia and Piper nigrum essential oils. The prepared films were applied on minimally processed pineapple to study the microbial inhibition of Gram + and Gram – bacteria and fungi and to evaluate the shelf life of the minimally processed fruit.

In this study alginate and chitosan-based edible coating were prepared and applied on minimally processed pineapple. The edible coatings were evaluated microscopically, by the power of reducing microbial contamination, by the shelf-life improvement.

This study demonstrates that the incorporation of the essential oils P. nigrum and S. terebinthifolia contributed to the inhibition of all the microorganisms studied and improved the shelf life of minimally processed pineapple. This is especially true for P. nigrum in the chitosan-based edible coating, where the shelf life was improved by 45 days.

Because of the pandemic, it was not possible to perform the sensory analyses of the antimicrobial alginate and chitosan-based edible coatings prepared.

From the results obtained, it is possible to state that the antimicrobial alginate and chitosan-based edible coatings incorporating S. terebinthifolia and P. nigrum essential oils can be used on minimally processed fruits and prolong their shelf life.

Due to the lifestyle of modern consumers, who demand speed and practicality and the need to consume fruits for health and quality of life, minimally processed fruits covered with edible coatings incorporating natural antimicrobial additives can provide a practical solution.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that alginate and chitosan-based edible coatings that incorporate P. nigrum and S. terebinthifolia applied on minimally processed fruit, have been studied.

Inventory control models for perishable products have primarily used a FIFO issuing policy with the objective of minimizing the number of outdated units. This paper aims to develop a model to evaluate an issuing policy for a single product with a fixed shelf life in single echelon inventory system. The issuing policy considers the remaining shelf life of the in‐stock inventory and the expected time that the product will spend in inventory as the decision driver.

The model developed has an objective of maximizing expected revenue over time with a budget constraint. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to iteratively arrive at the best solution to the formulation. The heuristic is tested by employing a simulation model of the system.

The proposed heuristic is tested against both the FIFO and the random allocation approaches and found to be superior for all the in‐stock with remaining shelf life distribution means of above 40 percent. No significant performance differences were found for the three approaches for remaining shelf life distribution.

The research is focused on a single product with multiple expiration dates and further research is necessary to determine the best policies for the multi‐product multi‐expiration date environment where the items are substitutable..

Retailers stock items with multiple expiration dates. The customer, for obvious reasons, is more likely to choose the item with the longer remaining shelf life. Therefore, the supply to the retailer's shelves and issuing policies for making available the particular items to the customers affect product outdating and related costs. Revenues will be affected by the extent to which more can be charged for items with a longer remaining shelf life or by the impact of the remaining shelf life on demand. This paper provides for a practical approach to that end.

The proposed issuing policy has not been tested before and thus makes a contribution to the body of knowledge. The flexibility of using different values for acquisition costs, selling prices, salvage value and penalty functions is a particular strength of the proposed model. Moreover, its potential application to inventory control problems for a wide range of perishable products is substantial.

This article highlights current research at the Leatherhead Food Research Association which is relevant to shelf‐life assessment of food products. One area is to improve the quality and safety of fish ‐ both fresh and cold‐smoked. Food MicroModel, a computer software package which aids in the prediction of the microbiological safety and spoilage potential of food products, is described. New methods capable of predicting the stability of oils and fats to oxidation, which can be a significant cause of reduced shelf‐life in fat‐containing foods, are described. Novel analytical instruments, known as electronic noses, have been shown to have potential, as has a total antioxidant activity test. Temperature control in factories is often a compromise between product safety and the need to maintain reasonable employee working conditions. This is no longer a problem with the development of glove box technology, which separates the two environments. The final study discussed in this article is the development of accelerated shelf‐life tests for chocolate products.