research food supply chain

• Open access
• Published: 23 August 2023

Meta-analysis of food supply chain: pre, during and post COVID-19 pandemic

• Abdul Kafi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7300-6898 1 ,
• Nizamuddin Zainuddin 1 ,
• Adam Mohd Saifudin 1 ,
• Syairah Aimi Shahron 1 ,
• Mohd Rizal Razalli 1 ,
• Suria Musa 1 &
• Aidi Ahmi 2  

Agriculture & Food Security volume  12 , Article number:  27 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Despite the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain since 2020. Understanding the current trends of research and scenarios in the food supply chain is critical for developing effective strategies to address the present issue. This study aims to provide comprehensive insights into the pre, during, and post COVID-19 pandemic in the food supply chain.

Methodology

This study used the Scopus database from 1995 to November 6, 2022, to analyse the food supply chain. Bibliometric analysis was conducted using VOSviewer software to create knowledge maps and visualizations for co-occurrence, co-authorship, and country collaboration. Biblioshiny, a shiny app for the Bibliometrix R package, was then used to explore theme evaluation path maps in the research domain.

The bibliometric analysis of 2523 documents provides important insights into present and future publication trends. Top author keywords included blockchain, traceability, food safety, sustainability, and supply chain management. The Sustainability (Switzerland) journal ranked first in productivity, and the International Journal of Production Economics received the highest citations. The United Kingdom was the most productive country, collaborating with partners in Europe, Asia, and North America. The Netherlands had the highest percentage of documents with international authors, while India and China had the lowest. The thematic evaluation maps revealed that articles focused on important research topics including food processing industry, information sharing, risk assessment, decision-making, biodiversity, food safety, and food waste.

This study contribute to the growing body of literature on the food supply chain by providing a comprehensive analysis of research trends during different phases of the pandemic. The findings can be used to inform policymakers and industry leaders about the measures required to build a more resilient and sustainable food supply chain infrastructure for the future. This study considered only Scopus online database for bibliometric analysis, which may have limited the search strategy. Future studies are encouraged to consider related published articles by linking multiple databases.

Introduction

Food supply chains are extensively explored and dependent on worldwide situations. The COVID-19 pandemic has addressed the deficiency of flexibility in food supply chain, resulting in financial and social disasters with global implications [ 1 ]. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the food supply chain, from field to consumer, which represents an important sector in any country. The discriminatory nature of the pandemic had a remarkable impact on people's lives and health standards, as well as global business, supply chains, and major economies [ 2 ]. Associated restrictions imposed during the pandemic affected the food safety of household by directly disrupting the food supply chain [ 3 , 4 ]. As a consequence of the severity, the stability of the food supply chain is essential to prevent interruption towards the national economy, social security and public health. Significant association of food supply chain occurred at the combination of dynamic, fragile and complicated that can simultaneously be influenced by the regulator actions, such as road closures, lockdown, and vehicle movement control. While such restrictions prevent the spread of a disease, they can also disrupt the trade of agricultural products and market chains [ 5 ]. Since the restriction was imposed by governments around the world, food distribution declined to 60% [ 6 ]. While, the COVID-19 pandemic also created serious obstruction in many sectors such as livestock production, vegetable production, plantation, cultivation and harvesting due to a shortage of labour as these sectors are comparatively labour-concentric [ 7 ]. Although, labour shortages also represented a crucial problem even before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 8 ]. This issue is undermining the capability of farmers and agriculture enterprises to operate because of scarcity of workers owing to illness and physical distance during harvesting. These circumstances delayed the provision of food and agriculture input and integrated issues in the food supply chain to market [ 9 ]. However, several firms depend on their key inputs, whereby the maximum are more vulnerable to disruptions since domestic markets have to meet their requirements. Barriers to logistics which interfere food supply chain further weaken high-value commodities because of their limited shelf life [ 6 , 10 ]. Therefore, maintenance of logistical efficiency, particularly during and after the global crisis is a vital aspect of the food sector. Correspondingly, raw material procurement from suppliers is the biggest bottleneck in the food supply chain and ensuring a continuous flow of food from producers to end users [ 11 ]. The challenge is to risk the capacity of agriculture producers to operate as usual which can negatively affect freshness and food safety, food quality, and limit market entrance and pricing [ 10 ]. The effects on agricultural systems due to the pandemic depend heavily on the composition and intensity of agricultural activity and vary according to the product manufactured and the country. In low-income countries, productivity is mostly labour oriented, whereas, in high-income countries, capital-intensive practices are generally dependent on agricultural production. Therefore, the supply chain should remain operational with a focus on crucial logistical problems [ 6 ]. In addition, the supply chain involves not just producers, distributors and customers, but also labour concerted food processing plants. Production in several plants has been limited, interrupted or temporarily stopped owing to workers who have been identified COVID -19 positive and who have hesitated to go to work presuming they are sick, especially in meeting processing firms at the time of the pandemic outbreak [ 12 , 13 ]. Besides, another important factor that caused food supply chin disruption during COVID -19 pandemic is centralized food production. This approach has contributed to the production and cost reduction of food processors. Centralisation has some limitation such as inflexible and long supply chain problems. Furthermore, it might cause challenges to meet demand through a small numbers of very big production facilities [ 14 ] such as closing the full process if a pandemic leads to high volume production lines with less options. In the face of these problems, food supply chain have shown tolerable resilience while supermarket shelves were refilled with the disappearance of hoarding behaviour and the demand growth response to supply chains [ 15 ].

Although several articles were published and included the aspect of COVID -19 impact on the food supply chain but are primarily concerned with the focus on the subject. Direct studies were related to bibliometric analysis to know the trend and scenario of research were not known. Thus, it is crucial to provide information with a clear direction of the present research status and future trends in the COVID-19 food supply chain. Evidence from several cohort studies in the bibliometric analysis was conducted on food safety governance [ 16 ], food supply chain safety research [ 17 ], and agri-food value chain [ 18 ]. As far as we know, there are no bibliometric analyses conducted related to COVID-19 food supply chain pre, during and post-pandemic.

After identifying this gap, this study tries to fill the gap by developing a detailed analysis of COVID-19 food supply chain studies pre, during and post-pandemic. As a quantitative analysis method, a bibliometric technique is adopted to develop a trend in various domains and utilized to uncover the present status [ 19 , 20 , 21 ]. In bibliometric analysis, researchers can define fields of research, looking at the further direction of research, and getting involved with other institutes and countries [ 22 ]. Hence, this study specifically focused to answer the pertaining research questions to present the trend of the previous studies on COVID-19 and the food supply chain with the global development of the field.

What are the dynamics and trends of COVID-19 food supply chain literature?

What are the highly-cited documents in COVID-19 food supply chain research through time?

What are the most productive authors, countries, institutions, and source titles in terms of publication numbers?

What are the more productive keywords in the COVID-19 supply chain research pre, during and post-pandemic?

What is the current knowledge formation status relating to co-occurrence, collaboration and co-authorship linkage in COVID-19 food supply chain research?

Which are the most productive research themes, and how did they evolve through time?

This study adopted a bibliometric technique to analyse the publication of COVID-19 on food supply chain research extracted from the Scopus database to provide a functional overview of the current trend of predictable research throughout the world. Scopus is considered the largest cited and referenced abstract of literature containing a wide range of subject areas. Employing Scopus is, therefore, an attempt to comprise more subjects which are not explored in WoS [ 23 , 24 ]. This study will help researchers, policymakers and individuals to support food supply chain research trends and to explore the possibilities and opportunities for future study.

To answer the research questions, the paper is organized into the following sections. “Introduction” Section discusses a brief introduction to the topic including the current knowledge on the impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain, the research gap, and the purpose of the study. “Literature review” Section discusses the literature review in the field of the COVID-19 food supply chain in general. “Bibliometric analysis and methods” Section describes the methodology used in this study which includes Bibliometric, Biblioshiny, and presents the flowchart and data analysis structure. “Results” Section covers the discussion to answer the above research questions and future research directions. “Conclusion” Section describes the conclusion that covers the contributions, limitations and future research scopes.

Literature review

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered disruptions to the food supply chains which included purchaser concern buying attitude for key items, as well as a rapid change in consumption trends, which shifts away from the food service industry and toward meals ready and consumed at home [ 25 ]. A similar study was focused on the supply chain and the food industry is no exception. Due to a decrease in demand, the closure of food production services, and financial constrain, the businesses are unable to continue supplying their products to stores[ 26 ], and the current status of the COVID-19 pandemic has put unprecedented pressure on food supply chains. These include bottlenecks in transportation, logistics, farm labour, and food processing [ 15 ]. This behaviour of the food supply chain (FSC) is identified a main reason worldwide [ 27 ]. The scenario is that the food supply chain is disrupted with a potential breakdown in food freight borders, increasing business flexibility and social capital through real-time business communication [ 28 ]. Because of emerging COVID-19 pandemic issues, there are major concerns about food production, manufacture, delivery, and consumption in the food supply chain [ 2 ]. Therefore, a lack of consumer access to food poses the ultimate threat to food security. There is also a massive rise in global food issue with the appearance of COVID-19 and the advent of numerous difficulties in all sectors of the food supply chain (such as production, distribution, and transportation), and this problem has taken on added significance [ 29 ].

COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant effect on the global food supply chain, raising public awareness about the constancy of the global food network and the significant interruption to food availability [ 30 ]. It is proven the COVID-19 pandemic has an effect on the agricultural and food supply chain from two angles, which are "food supply and food demand" [ 31 , 32 ]. In current months, the COVID -19 pandemic had threaten the global food supply chain creating economic instability, constraints to food accessibility, restrictions on farm commodity shipping, limitations on food production, difficulties in food product transit, evolving consumer demand, food production facility closures, shortages of farm workers to harvest vegetables, farm worker travel restrictions, and fruit deficiencies [ 33 , 35 , 35 ]. Therefore, numerous countries adopted diverse strategies to reduce the impact of COVID -19 on the food supply chain [ 34 ]. However, a potential problem still exists that need to be addressed to gradually resolve the present crisis. Hence, the global food supply chain is facing many issues resulting from the continuing COVID-19 pandemic around the world, which has prompted serious issues about food supply, distribution, processing, and demand [ 35 ]. Accordingly, the COVID -19 pandemic has increased disruption and damage to the global food supply chain in the following areas, which are (i) logistics (ii) harvest (iii) processing (iv) sourcing, and (v) go-to-market [ 36 ].

Bibliometric analysis and methods

Bibliometric analysis.

Bibliometric studies provide a wide range of options for understanding the significance of all studies. A quantitative and qualitative technique of bibliometric analysis is used for the publication of journals and articles, including their corresponding citations over time [ 37 ]. It differentiates the present status of research by measuring the scientific outcome of a country and institution and has played a major role in the past in influencing policymaking and improving the knowledge of science [ 38 , 39 ]. This also allows researchers to identify and help them to determine the scope of study topics, and plan their focused mind and projection of trends [ 40 ]. This method can provide a statistical output for calculating and estimating the number and development trends of a particular field [ 41 , 42 ]. Several studies have explored the food supply chain using the bibliometric technique [ 43 , 45 , 45 ]. This research provides a quantitative literature review by drawing connections between various keywords related to the food supply chain. It is a standardized technique for calculating and assessing written communication among authors [ 46 ], quantifying the trend and characteristics of a certain research area based on several measures [ 47 , 48 ], and focusing on research titles, keywords, affiliations, authors, and article publication [ 49 , 50 ], network and countries [ 51 ], co-authorship links, co-citation links, bibliographic coupling links that may be used in citation mapping to visualize a cluster or theme [ 51 ], and supply chain management [ 52 ]. In this study, Scopus databases are considered to extract necessary information. It is chosen as the source of the largest abstract indexing database and it is recommended by the previous studies that would cover a wide range of areas and provide comprehensive search options to help researchers develop search strings with accurate results, especially in broad areas of the research [ 44 , 53 ].

Thematic evaluation

Thematic evolution is a new research technique that is currently the widest accepted method for using many disciplines to measure the topic growth, evolution, and flow of a specific research area over time, supporting scholars in understanding the growth of a particular research area more methodically. This study used Biblioshiny, a shiny application for the Bibliometrix R package, to performthe thematic evaluation mapping [ 38 , 54 ]. To analyze the evaluation theme, the proportion of total authors' keywords indicated by drawing the range of the subject direction on the coordinate axis. The growth and decrease of the alluvial area represent the change in scale over time.

Data collection

This study has chosen the online Scopus database from 1995 to 6 November 2022 in food supply chain because it is the world's largest citation and abstract database of scholarly works from international publishers which provides a one-stop platform for scientific scholars [ 55 ]. Especially, compared to other databases like Web of Science (WoS), Google Scholar (GS), and PubMed (PubMed), Scopus has a wider variety of publications and helps with both keyword searches and bibliographic analysis [ 56 ]. Scopus has 20% higher coverage than WoS in terms of citation analysis, however, Google Scholar produces inconsistent results. PubMed is a database that is commonly utilised in scientific research [ 56 ]. Figure  1 shows the search strategy and detailed steps for the data collection for this study.

Flow diagram of article searching strategy of food supply chain documents

Search strategy

In a bibliometric study, it is important to choose the appropriate keywords. Based on the research questions, this study limited the search to two main title keywords: “food” and “supply chain”. Therefore, this research encompassed two possible combination strings of keywords that are relevant to the study’s topic. The title of an article should incorporate information that can be used to capture the attention of readers since it is the first element that readers will observe first [ 57 ]. Finally, this study comprises two search query strings TITLE (“food”) AND TITLE (“supply chain”). A total of 2523 research documents between 1995 and 6 November 2022 were obtained from the Scopus database (Additional file 1 ). There were no excluded methods applied during the search of the document as shown in Fig.  1 .

Tools and data analysis

Numerous disciplines had adopted VOSviewer to perform bibliometric analysis, e.g., social media in knowledge management [ 58 ], supply chain and logistics [ 59 ], presumption [ 58 ], business intelligence [ 60 ], health [ 61 ], and brand personality analysis [ 62 ]. To achieve the research objectives and research questions, this study adopted VOSviewer software to visualize the geographical distribution, authorship, citations, keywords, collaboration among countries specifically on COVID-19 food supply chain topics. The VOSviewer visualises bibliometric maps in different methods to present various features of literature structure. The VOSviewer employs an integrated approach to mapping and clustering that is constructed on the normalised term co-occurrence matrix and a similarity measure that determines the intensity of association between terms [ 51 , 63 ]. Based on citations and bibliographic coupling links, the VOSviewer creates clusters of authors' keywords, countries, and organizations. These clusters indicate the compactness of articles, keywords, countries, and organizations in specific research. In addition, Microsoft Excel 2013 software tools were used to analyze the primary data collected from Scopus (CSV format). Finally, R studio explores the evolutionary themes of COVID-19 food supply chain research topics pre, during and post-pandemic. Figure  2 portrays the different steps and analyses performed in this study. To address the research questions, the study is divided into two parts: descriptive analysis and network analysis.

Framework for bibliometric analysis

Descriptive analysis

This section explores the COVID-19 food supply chain research profile from 1995 to 2022, these include all current publication information, research trends, prolific authors, highly cited papers, publication sources, most productive institutions and countries, and the authors’ keywords as shown in Table 1 .

Yearly publication trend

The total publication, total citation, citation per article, and citation per year of the articles published between 1995 and 2022 were used to analyzed the yearly publication trends. Table 2 and Fig.  3 describe the yearly publication trend on the food supply chain pre, during and post COVID-19. In general, the number of publications on the COVID-19 food supply chain significantly increased from 217 articles in 2019 to 419 articles in 2021. The rate of development after 2020 was rather drastic and the number of publications increased to almost double that of the previous year. The growth of published articles indicates that the topic is beginning a stage of development. As a result, as of November 2022, 345 articles were published that have undertaken and explored new related topics attributed to the worldwide pandemic issues which simultaneously disrupted the supply chain.

The trend of publications per year of COVID-19 food supply chain

Most productive authors

The number of total publications, total citations, and h- index are analyzed to understand the most influential authors in COVID-19 food supply chain research domain. There are 5839 single authors devoting to food supply chain research from 1995 to 2022. Table 3 shows the twenty most prolific authors and found that Van Der Vorst, J.G.A.J has received the highest number of publications at 26 publications, 1945 total citations and h - index of 18 in this domain. Results revealed that Kumar, A. and Li, D are among the most prominent authors in the COVID-19 food supply chain field.

Highly cited papers

Table 4 shows associated information (authors, article title, total citations, and citations per year) of the top 20 most productive journals. The paper titled “Food waste within food supply chains: Quantification and potential for change to 2050” had 1699 total citations and 141.58 citations per year, followed by “Understanding alternative food networks: Exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development” with a total citation of 1033 and 54.37 citations per year, and “An agri-food supply chain traceability system for China based on RFID & blockchain technology” had a total citation of 751 and 125.17 citations per year, respectively. In addition, the core journals in COVID-19 food supply chain studies are multidisciplinary, referring to traceability, corporate social responsibilities, modelling approach, sustainability, bioavailability and human health, blockchain technology, fresh food quality etc.

Most productive source titles

There are 2523 articles published in different journals . Table 5 shows the top twenty source titles that published ten or more documents from 1995 to 2022. Sustainability (Switzerland), Journal of Cleaner Production and British Food Journal are the top three publishers with a total publication of 102, 67, and 52 on the COVID -19 food supply chain and total citations of 1571, 2669 and 1394, respectively.

Most productive countries

According to the Scopus database, COVID-19 food supply chain documents were extracted from 127 countries. Table 6 shows the top thirty most prolific countries with at least 25 papers published. Among the highest thirty countries, the United Kingdom is the most productive country with a leading publication of 400 articles, accounting for 15.85% followed by China with 327 articles (12.96%) ranked the second position, United States ranks third with 272 articles (10.78%), Italy ranks fourth with 234 articles (9.27%) and India ranks fifth with 230 articles (9.12%), respectively. As indicated, these productive countries have a greater concern about COVID-19 food supply chain research pre, during and post-pandemic than other countries.

Most prolific institutions

Table 7 lists the top ten most prolific institutions for the 327 articles studied accounting for 12.95% of total documents relating to COVID–19 food supply chain research. Wageningen University & amp; Research, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna and Cranfield University are the core contributor to this research domain. These institutes have published 183 articles, which interprets for 7.27% of the entire publications. The results indicate that the productive documents are extremely intense among a few institutes only.

Top frequent authors’ keywords

Table 8 presents the top frequently used authors' keywords in the food supply chain before the COVID-19 pandemic. There are 34 occurrences of the food supply chain put in the first place, followed by 24 and 10 occurrences in supply chain and supply chain management, respectively.

In bibliometric analysis, a word cloud of author's keywords is a visual representation of the most commonly used words in an article's list of keywords to identify the most common themes in an author's work. The size of each word in the cloud represents its frequency in the list of keywords [ 84 ]. Figure  4 shows the word cloud map of the top author’s keywords before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the map, cloud-found food supply chain, supply chain, supply chain management, food industry, food safety, and traceability are the always core analyse research topics. Based on this analysis, it was found that a relationship was established linking food safety, agri-food supply chain and sustainability. This proves the importance of research in linking these three keywords and their impact on the COVID-19 food supply chain are interconnected.

Word cloud of top author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19)

In addition, this study used Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) with the R package bibliometrix to investigate the author's keywords. The MCA is a data analysis method that could be applied to the graphical analysis of categorical data [ 38 ]. This study chose MCA because this analysis can identify the underlying themes established on the author’s keywords. Using the MCA method, related keywords are grouped, providing a hierarchical display of how frequently used terms are typically employed [ 83 ]. If two separate terms (like food and supply chain) appear in the same number of articles, then the two terms can be grouped [ 38 ].

Figure  5 maps the authors’ keywords conceptual structure associated with the “food” and “supply chain” publications domain before the COVID-19 pandemic. This map shows that the publications included in the analysis are categorized into two major groups which are red and blue. In each group, some words are connected. The red cluster shows more different words to which many research publications connect the words organized in this field. The conceptual structure is appeared in the keyword ‘co-occurrence’. For the red cluster, food is linked to food safety, organic food, short food supply, agri-food supply chain, and supply chain management. For the blue cluster, the supply chain is linked to food industry, sustainability, green supply chain management. Future research focuses on service oriented architecture and traceability, which follow the food supply chain stability to protect the disruption.

Conceptual structure map based on author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19)

Table 9 shows the most commonly used author’s keywords in food supply chain after COVID-19. Food supply chain appeared is in first place with 61 occurrences, followed by the supply chain, and sustainability with 44 and 31 occurrences, respectively. Following Fig.  6 , Table 9 indicates the top ranked keywords based on their co-occurrence.

Word cloud of author’s keywords (AFTER COVID-19)

Figure  6 shows the word cloud map of the author’s keywords after COVID-19 pandemic. Among the top word, cloud focused food supply chain, supply chain, blockchain, sustainability, short food supply chain, supply chain management, food industry, and agri-food supply chain are the core analyse research topics. Based on this analysis, it was found that a relationship has been established linking food safety, food security, food waste, traceability, and resilience. These top words are not expected and not to consider the searching string. However, these associations clearly indicated that there are severe influences on food supply chain as a whole after COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure  7 presents the author’s keywords conceptual structure involved with the food supply chain research domain after COVID-19 pandemic. The figure explores that the publications evolved in the analysis are clustered into two key groups, which directs the logical construct of food supply chain studies. For the red group, food is linked to food system, food loss and waste, short food supply chain, and food supply chain performance. For the blue group, supply chain is linked to total interpretative structuring modelling, digital technology and internet of things. Future research focuses on food supply chain study related to blockchain, traceability, resilience, innovation, sustainable development, consumer behaviour and crucial economy, which is the way of comprehensive understanding of food supply chain research trends.

Conceptual structure map based on author’s keywords (AFTER COVID-19)

Based on the analysis of word clouds and conceptual structure maps, it has been found that certain words may appear frequently in a word cloud of an author's keywords but not be represented in the author's conceptual structure of keywords. This is because a word cloud simply represents the frequency of occurrence of individual words or phrases, while an author's keywords conceptual structure focuses on the relationships between those words and phrases. For example, a word like "food industry” may appear frequently in an author's list of keywords and thus have a comparatively large size in the word cloud, but it may not be a central concept in the author's research, and therefore may not have a visible position in the author's keywords conceptual structure. On the other hand, a less frequently occurring word like "consumer behaviour” may have a more central position in the author's conceptual structure, even though it appears less frequently in the word cloud. Overall, both tools serve different purposes in bibliometric analysis and provide complementary insights into an author's research focus [ 50 ].

Bibliometric mapping analysis of COVID-19 food supply chain

A common application of bibliometric mapping analysis is to recognize particular research fields to gain an outline of the topology of the study area, its themes, topics, and terms, and how they connect closely [ 85 ]. Furthermore, to visualise the output of bibliometric mapping, a worldwide mapping analysis method is visualization of similarities (VOS) [ 46 , 51 , 83 ] has been adopted through a computer aided program called VOSviewer (Leiden University, Netherlands) [ 63 ]. The VOSviewer visualizes bibliometric maps in a range of methods in accordance with emphasising unique factors regarding the literature production. VOSviewer applied a combined method for both clustering and mapping or it is mainly created on the standardised term co-occurrence which estimates relationship strength between terms and is also an effective tool for conducting network analysis [ 86 ]. Furthermore, VOSviewer Version 1.6.2 [ 63 ] allows the construction of sceneries in which terms are coloured based on the year of their first presence in scientific publication. The size of the font and the enclosing rectangle indicates the popularity of a term; bigger rectangles and fonts indicate more productive terms. This study used VOSviewer to visualise co-authorship and collaboration networks and R studio to visualise co-occurrence of keywords and thematic evaluation of COVID-19 food supply chain topics.

Co-authorship analysis

Co-authorship network visualisation revealed knowledge domain maps of major authors groups in the COVID-19 food supply chain research. Figure  8 , each node shows an author, and the size of the nodes indicates the number of published articles. The link connecting two nodes represents the collaborative relationship between two authors, and the thickness of the link indicates the degree of association. Based on the knowledge domain maps of the co-authorship network, potential authors can deliver important information for a research institute to improve collaboration groups, for individual researchers to seek collaboration scopes and for the publisher to gather editorial teams to publish special issues in journals or books. It can be seen from Fig.  8 , the cooperation among prolific authors is intense. Co-authorship network formed several groups, such as the yellow group comprising Van Der Vorst (documents 26, links 26), followed by Kumar (documents 19, links 36) in the green group, and Liu (documents 16, links 16) in the yellow group as the core. Based on the results among the research groups, most productive authors mainly work independent or in collaboration inside the same organization, but the scale of such collaboration is small and not firm resulting to a lack of effective international exchange and cooperation.

Co-authorship network among productive authors

Countries collaboration network

This study established a collaboration network among countries through VOSviewer software in the research domain knowledge map in the field of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. A network visualisation map is presented in Fig.  9 . The co-authorship collaboration was established among 127 countries whereas articles were contributed from 67 countries (minimum threshold document 5). The thickness of the line indicates with each country can be determined by the frequency of co-authorship. This map indicates that a satisfactory collaboration network was established between the United Kingdom, China, United States, Italy, India, Netherlands, Germany, and France. More importantly, the United Kingdom collaboration developed with the European, Asian and North American countries and received the highest citations of 14712, links 301 and 400 documents. However, Singapore, Peru, Israil, Algeria, Romania, Lativia, Ukraine and Qatar have had less cooperation with other countries. In our opinion, there are two significances of the high proportion of articles in countries. First, it contributes to the delivery of more detailed study topics, and secondly, provides a window of opportunity for the collaboration of new countries; in other words, it enables the collaboration of other researchers and institutions in these fields.

Co-authorship collaboration network among countries

Keyword co-occurrence network

Keywords are the major content of publications, and the purpose of keyword analysis is to identify important research compositions in COVID-19 food supply chain. A co-occurrence network of author’s keywords was used to highlight research topics in the field. The method refers to the most commonly used keywords represented by the font size and larger circles [ 61 ]. The lines between the keywords reflect their correlation strength [ 20 , 61 ]. For a better understanding, the related keywords are commonly listed, as indicated by the same colour. Keywords without lines between them indicate that no connection has been developed. Considering that the closer to the centre of the network map terms appear, the more co-occurrence together. A closer connection indicates a stronger association.

To explore associated keywords to COVID-19 food supply chain research, the results in Fig.  10 indicate that two thematic clusters have been identified such as (i) food supply chain, and (ii) Supply chain and each cluster is denoted in a different colour. As shown in Fig.  10 , food supply chain covers the network centre, demonstrated by the greater cluster theme studied by previous scholars. The keyword ‘food supply chain’ is superposed on sustainability, food waste, COVID-19, circular economy, resilience, small and medium enterprise and food loose representing the closeness between them, further, COVID-19 impact on the food supply chain cannot be separated. Though in the second network of the supply chain, the linked keywords are supply chain management, blockchain, food industry, traceability, food safety, agri-food supply chain and short food supply chain. These highlight the COVID-19 pandemic impact and implies the rising attraction in this research field.

Author’s keywords co-occurrence analysis

This study used Biblioshiny software to analyse the author's keywords pre, during and post-COVID-19 food supply chain research to draw the evaluation of core research themes from 1995 to 2022. Figure  11 shows a Sankey diagram to analyse the journal's thematic evolution for the readers related to COVID-19 food supply chain. A Sankey diagram is used to demonstrate how various themes are related and have evolved in the past [ 54 ]. Each box on the map represents a theme, and the size of the boxes is relational to the frequency with which the theme occurs [ 87 ]. The flows connect each box, displaying the theme's evolution traces, and the thicker the connecting line, the stronger the link between the two themes. Overall, themes in COVID-19 supply chain are becoming more diverse over time, probably because more scholars from various fields are attracted to this theme. These indicated that the COVID-19 food supply chain gradually intersects with various fields such as e-government, traceability, information sharing, risk assessment, food waste, and blockchain. As shown in Fig.  11 , COVID-19 research in the food supply chain has evolved into six new themes from 1995 to 2019 and three themes from 2020 to 2022. Furthermore, it shows how the six themes exhibited with three themes before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thematic evaluation based on authors’ keywords (Pre and Post COVID-19)

While Fig.  12 shows the thematic map before the COVID-19 pandemic mainly the upper-right quadrant reveals the motor theme which is high centrality and density because these themes are well developed and significant to the structure of a research field. The lower-right quadrant shows the basic themes. They are categorized by moderate centrality, which is resilience and the main focus in COVID-19 food supply chain research. This quadrant consists both transversal and general themes. The upper-left quadrant shows the niche themes which are strongly interconnected among themselves and have strong centrality to outside research. These concerns are extremely broader and significant. The theme related in the lower-left shows the growing or decreasing themes which are minimal and underdeveloped. The themes in this quadrant have a low density and centrality and they commonly reveal new theme.

The strategic thematic map of the author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19)

Figure  13 provides an overview and future trends of academic research on the food supply chain after the COVID-19 pandemic through the themes presented in the four quadrants. The motor themes have been developed extensively in both food supply and supply chain management. Food waste and catering services are well developed and isolated, and they occupy the basic theme. This is practically after COVID-19 pandemic, these themes gained importance for the food supply chain. Relatively emerging theme have currently been discussed comprehensively the subject of blockchain and food safety included in the third quadrant of cointegration has been on the boundary between basic and emerging themes, which is high centrality and density to the structure of a research field. Finally, the fourth quadrant is the food chain and food contamination themes are relatively wider and have a strong connection with the food supply chain. The most important rising topics in this period were the blockchain and food safety, which is on the border between basic and emerging or declining themes. Strongly interconnected niche theme is food contamination as a new problem in the food supply chain.

The strategic thematic map of the author’s keywords (Post COVID-19)

Discussion and future research direction

The descriptive analysis simplifies the present trend of research on the food supply chain by analysing pre, before and -post-COVID-19 data. It shows growing interest in COVID-19 on the food supply chain from the scientific community, which is an attractive issue in research, with a significant publication. Still, the COVID-19 pandemic led to high incidents in the food supply chain and the investigation and development strategies might be the result of this interest. It is proven that the current trend of COVID-19 impact is a major challenge to food supply chain analysis research and the pertaining term in the food supply chain has been encouraged in terms of COVID-19 impact reduction. By analysing the top keywords, many prospects for future study that have been disclosed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 has exposed supply chain vulnerability, confirming the importance of optimization and simulation. Implementing new technologies can improve efficiency, save costs, and increase customer satisfaction, allowing businesses to remain competitive. Similarly, Keywords on short food supply address these difficulties, there may be a shift towards shorter, more localized food supply chains can improve resilience and reduce the risk of disruptions caused by global crises or natural disasters. This approach may also provide potential synergy between sustainability practices and the need for more robust and sustainable food supply systems [ 88 , 89 ]. The use of blockchain technology can enhance traceability in supply chains, reducing the risk of food fraud and improving food safety. Blockchain can also support the adoption of sustainable and effective supply chain management strategies, particularly for short food supply chains. However, further research is necessary to develop new models for direct sales and blockchain-based systems that can validate the sustainability of food products. To minimize waste and increase efficiency, it is essential to integrate blockchain technology into food supply chains in a way that considers both economic and environmental impacts [ 91 ]. Finally, the Covid-19 outbreak has emphasized the significance of collaboration and innovation in the food industry. In the coming years, there may be a surge in investments in research and development, along with increased partnerships between industry players to discover new ways to address the issues affecting the food sector. Through these efforts, the industry can build a more resilient, sustainable, and secure food system for the future [ 92 ]. This also might lead to different directions for research, which include exploring new related topics and exploring less studied fields through a new framework. It might also be beneficial to provide new collaboration opportunities to widen the scope of the study.

Then, this study found the most productive countries, institutes and productive authors. The results explored that the United Kingdom is the most emerging country, but at the growing stages, China, the United States and Italy are also effective contributors in this field. The Wageningen University & amp; Research and Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna have been the most productive institutes with one hundred twenty (120) and thirty-three (33) publications. Looking at the prolific authors, Van Der Vorst received the highest citation with 1945 citations. These countries and institutions have produced more in-depth and critical research in this area. The results of this analysis help governments, institutions, and authors work together, share knowledge of the COVID -19 food supply chain, and employing comprehensive strategies and efficient methods to address supply chain-related issues.

To develop an in-depth understanding of the results, this study used bibliometric mapping to provide a more comprehensive visualization of the results. The author’s keywords and co-occurrence (or co-word) analysis demonstrated that more research was focused on COVID-19 food supply chain and its impact on food security, food safety, traceability, food industry and sustainability which is closer to the circle. This finding addresses the issue of the COVID-19 food supply chain is linked to agriculture production and policy for food sustainability and its outcome is rational on the implication of food safety and food security to protect regular demand [ 87 , 88 ]. Another important issue suggests that creating more supply chain resilience may initiate a better initiative to managing and reducing challenges and risks faced pre and post COVID-19 pandemic [ 89 , 90 ]. Meanwhile, the co-authorship network shows that comparatively less collaboration occurs among authors on COVID-19 food supply chain research. This implies that the findings of Van Der Vorst and Kumar play an important role in the collaboration network. Although having a low level of relationship act as knowledge breakers among groups. The findings of the study also show that Li, D. Manning, L. and Accorsi, R have the same number of publications but few relational ties. This outcome could be influenced by limited collaborations within a closed group. Therefore, effective collaboration among scholars is required to widen the scope of COVID-19 food supply chain research.

By analysing thematic evaluation using the author’s keywords and compiling the results that postulate further direction that the research prolific topics of COVID-19 food supply chain are mainly connected to the food processing industry, traceability enterprise performance, information sharing and dissemination, decision making, risk assessment, food waste, food loose, and food traceability system. These eight primary directions are captured with each other in the evolutionary process. Research on the COVID-19 food supply chain still has significant potential for development because the integration, intensity, and reorganization of themes are more pronounced, showing that the articles are closely related and the degree of diversity is not high. This interdisciplinary research indicates that the COVID -19 food supply chain has an impact on food security and triggered disruption to respond to the current pandemic food security and caused disruption to food supply chain and suggests developing a framework for smooth resilience in the food supply chain system [ 33 ].

Furthermore, this study develops a basic structure for the most affected themes within the global food chain created by the post-COVID-19 pandemic. Generally, the global food chain combines production, processing, distribution, and consumption on a large scale [ 15 , 92 ]. The intensity of the impact may vary among sectors and goods at various stages of the supply chain for various products. There are four significant issues raised in the thematic analysis that the global food chain should address in the post-COVID-19 pandemic. The following diagram (Fig. 14 ) presents the basic structure of the global food chain that can help the food industry adapt to the post-pandemic situations caused by COVID-19.

Proposed framework for building robust and resilience global food supply chain in the post-COVID-19 pandemic

Source: Author(s): Author own construction

Firstly, COVID-19 has highlighted the crucial importance of food safety in the global food chain. Ensuring safe food from farm to fork is now a top priority for governments, food manufacturers, and consumers worldwide. Therefore a robust food safety system (e.g., processing, distribution and preparation activities, consumption, and delivery) and a strong food safety culture would safeguard public health and prevent future pandemics [ 93 ]. Secondly, COVID-19 disruptions in transportation, distribution, and consumption have led to increased food waste, resulting in significant losses in food supply chains. These relevancy have encouraged the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies and practices, aimed at addressing the widely recognized issue of food waste and loss. Specifically, advanced technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, BIG Data, artificial intelligence, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be leveraged to obtain up-to-date information, enhance communication between suppliers and buyers, and rationalise the distribution of food supply chain [ 90 ]. Thirdly, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the food supply chain, raising concerns about the need for increased transparency, efficiency, and safety in the food industry. Consequently, there is a growing interest in employing blockchain technology to resolve these issues. Blockchain provides a secure and transparent way to monitor food products from the farm to the table, thereby reducing food waste and ensuring food safety and quality. With its potential to improve supply chain management and food safety, blockchain is anticipated to play a crucial role in the post-COVID-19 pandemic food industry [ 94 ]. Fourthly, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in pressure on natural resources and a decline in biodiversity. The post-COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity to construct more resilient and sustainable food systems that promote both human welfare and biodiversity conservation. By creating a secure and transparent record of food production and distribution, stakeholders will be able to better comprehend the environmental impact of food systems and work towards more sustainable practices. In addition, the use of blockchain technology in the food supply chain can help conserve biodiversity by encouraging sustainable agricultural practises and reducing food waste [ 95 ].

The findings of the global food supply chain's main themes of the post-COVID-19 pandemic emphasise food safety, the reduction of food waste, and the conservation of biodiversity. Tracking food products throughout the supply chain, blockchain technology has emerged as an effective instrument for enhancing food safety, quality, and transparency. It is essential to manage the food supply chain sustainably in order to safeguard public health, the environment, and social and economic development [ 96 ].

Another important issue relevant to COVID-19 food supply chain is the gap of strategic intervention in the study. Specifically, the role of the government and country policies in controlling the disruption and ensuring an effective food supply chain that is raised on lean strategic principles is to be considered extensively. For example, only the country's national policy for the food sector to re-design and re-shape their food supply chains before and after the COVID-19 resilience strategy and how it helps to build a smooth food supply chain that is capable of managing the further pandemics. However, the previous study on bibliometric analysis focused on food supply chain safety [ 17 ], and agri-food value chain, this study establishes the novel analysis of the prior study on the COVID-19 food supply chain.

In this study, a total of 2523 papers were published in the field of the COVID-19 food supply chain, and the evolution of the current state of trend during and after the COVID-19 pandemic was scientifically mapped. The COVID-19 food supply chain bibliometric mapping trend was conducted using Vosviewer software and thematic evolution trend analysis using R software to measure the most rising subjects topic. In bibliometric analysis, this study explored key information such as yearly publication trends, article sources and document contents, prolific authors, highly cited papers, most productive institutions, most productive countries, most productive source titles, top authors keyword, co-occurrence, co-authorship network, and country collaboration network. Next, this study highlighted the thematic evaluation, and thematic maps provide an opportunity in specific areas related to the COVID-19 food supply chain pre, during and post-pandemic, thus building subject knowledge importance and how its various aspects have been used before and post COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this contribution to more empirical policy-related research is encouraged to robust the food supply chain and reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic connected to food safety, agriculture production, resilience solution, mitigate supply chain disruptions, and improve sustainability as shown in Figs.  12 and 13 . Another important contribution, this study revealed specific research gaps in the present literature and proposes a scope for the specific research areas to fill these gaps. Finally, a co-occurrence analysis with the author’s keywords is conducted to stipulate the trend of research pre, before and post-COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the limitations of this study is considering Scopus online database which is the main source for bibliometric analysis. In this case, the selection of data sources may limit the search strategy. Future studies are encouraged for considering other sectors to know how the food supply chain of those sectors is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by linking articles from other data sources such as the Google Scholar and Web of Science.

As the pandemic has a massive impact on the world's food supply chain, the study is expected to provide new insight by evolving all the related documents published in this field with a systematic review method. Scholars and policymakers can use this research to know current developments in the food supply chain, and adopt various resilience strategies as discussed to mitigate the impact. However, the pandemic has a severe impact on the global food supply chain. The study is expected to provide more insights by compiling all relevant literature published in this domain using bibliometric analysis. Therefore, this study will be helpful for scholars and policymakers to understand what is happening in the food supply chain pre, during and post pandemic, and policymakers may apply different development strategies as explored to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic impact.

Availability of data and materials

All data presented in this manuscript are available on Scopus database using the search query highlighted in the “Methodology” section. Raw data are attached to the manuscript.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1: table s1..

Overview of the bibliographic information’s for the food supply chain domain recovered from Scopus database. Table S2. Trends in yearly publications. Table S3. Most productive authors that published 10 and more publications in the food supply chain. Table S4. Top twenty highly cited documents published in the COVID-19 food supply chain domain. Table S5. Most productive source title. Table S6. Most productive countries published twenty-five and more documents. Table S7. Top ten most prolific institutions. Table S8. Top frequent author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19). Table S9. Top author’s keywords (AFTER COVID-19). Figure S1. Flow diagram of article searching strategy of food supply chain documents. Figure S2. Framework for bibliometric analysis. Figure S3. The trend of publications per year of COVID - 19 food supply chain. Figure S4. Word cloud of top author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19). Figure S5. Conceptual structure map based on author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19). Figure S6. Word cloud of author’s keywords (AFTER COVID-19). Figure S7. Conceptual structure map based on author’s keywords (AFTER COVID-19). Figure S8. Co-authorship network among productive authors. Figure S9. Co-authorship collaboration network among countries. Figure S10. Author’s keywords co-occurrence analysis. Figure S11. Thematic evaluation based on authors’ keywords (Pre and Post COVID-19). Figure S12. The strategic thematic map of the author’s keywords (BEFORE COVID-19). Figure S13. The strategic thematic map of the author’s keywords (Post COVID-19). Figure S14. Proposed framework for building robust and resilience global food supply chain in the post-COVID-19 pandemic.

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Kafi, A., Zainuddin, N., Saifudin, A. et al. Meta-analysis of food supply chain: pre, during and post COVID-19 pandemic. Agric & Food Secur 12 , 27 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-023-00425-5

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• COVID-19 pandemic
• Food supply chain
• Bibliometric mapping
• Biblioshiny

Agriculture & Food Security

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Food supply chain management: systems, implementations, and future research

Industrial Management & Data Systems

ISSN : 0263-5577

Article publication date: 16 October 2017

The purpose of this paper is to review the food supply chain management (FSCM) in terms of systems and implementations so that observations and lessons from this research could be useful for academia and industrial practitioners in the future.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematical and hierarchical framework is proposed in this paper to review the literature. Categorizations and classifications are identified to organize this paper.

This paper reviews total 192 articles related to the data-driven systems for FSCM. Currently, there is a dramatic increase of research papers related to this topic. Looking at the general interests on FSCM, research on this topic can be expected to increase in the future.

Research limitations/implications

This paper only selected limited number of papers which are published in leading journals or with high citations. For simplicity without generality, key findings and observations are significant from this research.

Practical implications

Some ideas from this paper could be expanded into other possible domains so that involved parties are able to be inspired for enriching the FSCM. Future implementations are useful for practitioners to conduct IT-based solutions for FSCM.

Social implications

As the increasing of digital devices in FSCM, large number of data will be used for decision-makings. Data-driven systems for FSCM will be the future for a more sustainable food supply chain.

Originality/value

This is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive review on FSCM from the view of data-driven IT systems.

• Case studies
• Food supply chain management
• Data-driven systems
• Implementations

Zhong, R. , Xu, X. and Wang, L. (2017), "Food supply chain management: systems, implementations, and future research", Industrial Management & Data Systems , Vol. 117 No. 9, pp. 2085-2114. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-09-2016-0391

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Ray Zhong, Xun Xu and Lihui Wang

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial & non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Food industry plays an important role in providing basics and necessities for supporting various human activities and behaviors ( Cooper and Ellram, 1993 ). Once harvested or produced, the food should be stored, delivered, and retailed so that they could reach to the final customers by due date. It was reported that about one-third of the produced food has been abandoned or wasted yearly (approximately 1.3 billion tons) ( Manning et al. , 2006 ). Two-third of the wasted food (about 1 billion tons) is occurred in supply chain like harvesting, shipping and storage ( Fritz and Schiefer, 2008 ). Take fruit and vegetables for example, such perishable food was wasted by 492 million tons worldwide in 2011 due to the inefficient and ineffective food supply chain management (FSCM) ( Gustavsson et al. , 2011 ). Therefore, FSCM is significant to save our food.

FSCM has been coined to depict the activities or operations from production, distribution, and consumption so as to keep the safety and quality of various food under efficient and effective modes ( Marsden et al. , 2000 ; Blandon et al. , 2009 ). The differences of FSCM from other supply chains such as furniture logistics and supply chain management are the importance reflected by factors like food quality, safety, and freshness within limited time, which make the underlying supply chain more complex and difficult to manage ( La Scalia et al. , 2016 ). The complexities are significant in the case of perishable products where their traversal time through FSCM and the use warehouses or buffers against demand and transportation variability are severely limited. Additionally, as the coordination from worldwide scale, the complexities have been compounded, thus, the focus from a single echelon such as food production was shifted to the efficiency and effectiveness of holistic supply chain. That means the resources like trucks, warehouse facilities, transportation routes, and workers within the food supply chain will be used efficiently so as to ensure the food quality and safety through effective efforts such as optimization decisions ( Wu, Liao, Tseng and Chiu, 2016 ).

As the development of cutting-edge technologies, FSCM has been widely recognized both by practitioners and academia. Information technology (IT) has brought dramatic improvements to FSCM in terms of automatic food processing like cleansing and packing as well as freshness storage ( King and Phumpiu, 1996 ; Caswell et al. , 1998 ; Wang et al. , 2015 ). However, the discipline of FSCM is still incapable of addressing many practical real-life challenges satisfactorily. The reasons for the inadequacy are attributed to low operational levels from farmers ( Folkerts and Koehorst, 1997 ), information obstacle among different stakeholders ( Caswell et al. , 1998 ), and inefficient decision-making systems/models ( Ahumada and Villalobos, 2009 ). Strategic decision-makers require comprehensive models to increase total profitability while data input into those models are usually ignored in most of traditional myopic models. In order to address current challenges, it is necessary to investigate better approaches to accommodate emerging global situations after taking a critical look at the current FSCM practices and conditions.

This paper selects total 192 articles from 1993 to 2017 by searching the key word “FSCM” in Google Scholar (until November 2016). Special concentration is placed upon the data-driven IT systems which are used for facilitating the FSCM with particular aims of re-designing and re-rationalizing current supply chain to a globally integrated fashion for food industry. Among these articles, there are seven reports from website, 25 papers are case studies, and the others are typical research papers related to FSCM. Most of these reviewed papers are from leading journals such as International Journal of Production Economics (19), European Journal of Operational Research (4), Journal of Cleaner Production (10), Food Control (13), Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (7), Journal of Operations Management (3), British Food Journal (4), etc. Figure 1 presents the selected papers in a yearly view. As demonstrated, there is only a few studies about data-driven IT systems in FSCM in early 1990s. Then, the related papers are fluctuated slightly from 2000 to 2014. Currently, as showing from the prediction curve, there is a dramatic increase of research papers related to this topic. Looking at the general interests on FSCM, the quantity can be expected to increase in the future.

This paper categorizes related topics in a hierarchical organization. Figure 2 presents the scope of the review that each focus is dissected to organize this paper. Section 2 talks about the supply chain management for food industry that covers three themes such as frameworks, models, and worldwide movement. Section 3 presents two major IT systems – traceability systems and decision-making systems for FSCM. Section 4 demonstrates FSCM implementations in terms of reported cases and data-driven applications. Section 5 summarizes the current challenges and future perspectives in four aspects: supply chain network structure, data collection, decision-making models, and implementations. Section 6 concludes this paper through identifying some insights and lessons from this investigation.

2. Supply chain management for food industry

2.1 frameworks.

A framework for FSCM is a basis for manufacturing, processing, and transforming raw materials and semi-finished products coming from major activities such as forestry, agriculture, zootechnics, finishing, and so on ( Dubey et al. , 2017 ). In order to identify the relationships among different items, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) was used to establish a hierarchical framework ( Faisal and Talib, 2016 ). This framework helps users to understand the interactions among logistics operators in a food supply chain. ISM-enabled framework was also used to support risk management in identifying and interpreting interdependences among food supply chain risks at different levels such as first-tier supplier, third-party logistics (3PL), etc. ( Colin et al. , 2011 ). It is observed that this framework was proven as a useful method to structure risks in FSCM through a step-by-step process on several manufacturing stages. Information plays an important role in making FSCM more efficient. In order to assess the information risks management, an ISM based framework was proposed by twining graph theory to quantify information risks and ISM to understand the interrelationships in FSCM ( Nishat Faisal et al. , 2007 ). As the global FSCM is emerging with international collaborations, ISM-enabled framework confines to explain causal relationships or transitive links among various involved parties. A total interpretive structural modeling was then introduced to analyze some enablers and barriers of FSCM ( Shibin et al. , 2016 ). In this paper, ten enablers and eight barriers are examined by separate frameworks to further understand the interactions within a dynamic era of globalization FSCM.

Value chains play a critical role in FSCM to benefit the producers and consumers. Stevenson and Pirog (2008) introduced a value chain framework for strategic alliances between food production, processing and distribution which seek to create more value in the supply chain. The proposed framework concerns about food supply chain economic performance that correspond to the organization, structure, and practices of a whole supply chain. Food traceability has been widely used in the last few decades with large number applications. However, frameworks for a general or common implementation are scarcely reported. To label whether a framework with respect to food traceability application, Karlsen et al. (2013) observed that with a common framework, traceability is prone to be similar and implementation processes are more goal-oriented and efficient. Thus, Regattieri et al. (2007) presented a general framework and used experimental evidence to analyze legal and regulatory aspects on food traceability. They designed an effective traceability system architecture to analyze assessment criteria from alphanumerical codes, bar codes, and radio frequency identification (RFID). By integrating alphanumerical codes and RFID technology, the framework has been applied for both cheese producers and consumers.

Currently, coordination in the food supply chain from production to consumption is significant to ensure the safety and quality of various food. Take agri-food supply chain for example, Hobbs and Young (2000) depicted a conceptual framework to achieve closer vertical collaboration in FSCM using of contracting approaches. This work has critical impacts on transaction cost economics by developing a closer vertical coordination. In an international food supply chain, Folkerts and Koehorst (1997) talked about a framework which integrates the chain reversal and chain management model to make vertical coordination. In their framework, an analytical service designed particularly for benchmarking food supply chain projects is used so that an interconnected system of high performance and effectiveness are achieved as an integrated supply chain. Facing a global FSCM, strategic decision-making is important since the profitability of an entire chain could be increased by the holistic efforts from an efficient framework. To this end, Georgiadis et al. (2005) presented a system dynamics modeling framework for the FSCM. In this framework, end-users are able to determine the optimal network configuration, inventory management policy, supply chain integration, as well as outsourcing and procurement strategies. Collaboration is becoming more of a necessity than an option despite some barriers which deteriorate coordination among enterprises in food industry all over the world. Doukidis et al. (2007) provided a framework to analyze supply chain collaboration in order to explore a conceptual landmark in agri-food industry for further empirical research. It is observed that, from this framework, supply chain collaboration is of critical importance and some constraints such as time and uncertainties arise due to the nature of agri-food industry.

Globalization of food production, logistics and consumption have resulted in an interconnected system for FSCM whose models play crucial role in ensuring food products of high and consistent safety and quality ( Choi et al. , 2016 ). In this section, we present related work using various models for considering five major aspects like food quality, supply chain efficiency, food waste, food safety, and value chain analysis. An incomplete list of the leading authors covering these five aspects is shown in Table I . In order to better demonstrate the literature, key contributions for each paper are highlighted at the last column.

From Table I , it could be observed that food quality, supply chain efficiency and food safety are more concerned in these models. And multi-objectives are commonly considered, for example, food quality and safety are integrated in the decision models. However, food waste is specifically looked at without twining with other aspects. Recently, supply chain efficiency and value chain analysis are placed special emphasis since the global FSCM is becoming more and more significant.

2.3 Worldwide movement

Current movements on FSCM from major districts are presented in this section which covers Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific.

2.3.1 Europe

The food industry is the EU’s largest sector in terms of employed people and value added. From one report about the data and trends of EU food and drink industry 2014-2015, the employment is 4.2 million people with 1.8 percent of EU gross value added and the turnover is €1,244 billion ( FoodDrinkEurope, 2015 ). The turnover is increased by 22.32 percent compared with that from the year 2011 (€1,017 billion). Despite the significant increase of turnover, European Commission recently pointed out that the EU food industry is facing a decrease in competitiveness caused by a lack of transparency in food supply chain ( European Commission, 2016 ). In order to enhance global competitiveness, in November 2011, 11 EU organizations like AIM, FoodDrinkEurope, European Retail Round Table (ERRT), CEJA, EuroCommerce, Euro Coop, Copa Cogeca, etc. signed a Supply Chain Initiative document which is based on a set of principles of good practice. After two years, seven EU level associations agreed to implement the principles which have been converted into 23 languages.

Retailers play important roles in FSCM since they are selling thousands of different products each of which has its own supply chain with distinct features and complexities. ERRT, an organization including the CEO’s of Europe’s leading international retail companies conducted a framework of the EU High Level Forum for a better food supply chain that often involves large number of business partners. Under the framework, leading retailers are going to build up a well-functioning and competitive supply chain in maintaining good relationships with their suppliers so as to bring the best and most innovative foods and drinks to the customers ( ERRT, 2013 ). Retailers in EU are also aware that it is their environmental responsibilities to delivery of foods via a more sustainable model by contacting with consumers and suppliers. Thus, in March 2009, in response to the European Commission’s Action Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production, ERRT set up the Retailers Environmental Action Programme (REAP) which aims to reduce environmental footprint in the food supply chain. REAP not only facilitates the sustainability dialogue with food supply chain key stakeholders, but also stimulates retailers to adopt new FSCM models ( European Commission, 2015 ).

Logistics is a bridge between food retailers and manufacturers. It was reported that, in 2012, there were 24 million people employed in the food supply chain and 21 percent of the employment comes from logistics-related companies ( European Commission, 2016 ). European Logistics Association (ELA) is a federation with over 30 organizations from Central and Western Europe. Recently, in order to achieve green logistics, ELA developed a sustainable supply chain scheme for FSCM ( ELA, 2012 ). From economic, environmental, and social perspectives, this scheme focuses on realistic financial structure, sustainable FSCM, and successful cases implementation which are should be truly sustainable. Take European Logistics Hub, Limburg – a province in the south of the Netherlands for example, high developed logistics facilities and modern logistics infrastructures offer an advanced logistics with lowest supply chain costs and environment impacts ( Hemert and Iske, 2015 ).

Food production as source of FSCM is extremely important in Europe since about 9.12 million people were employed in agricultural industry including planting, harvesting, and so on. There are approximately 1,700 food manufacturers from 13 European countries. European Federation of Associations of Health Product Manufacturers (EHPM) aims to develop a sort of regulatory frameworks throughout the EU for health and natural food. Recently, EHPM is in support of producing the harmonization of health, safety, and qualified aspects for food supplements through an optimization of positive economic impacts on Food Supplements sector in the EU market ( EHPM, 2013 ). Advanced technologies bring large benefit to food industry globally. A food Tech innovation Portal was launched by European Commission to apply innovative technology, such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and information and communications technology (ICT) to help food manufacturers to provide more health, safe, and natural foods ( European Commission, 2014 ).

2.3.2 North America

North America is the second largest food industry in the world with a turnover of about €650 billion in 2013. Take USA for example, from an incomplete report in 2013, there were 40,229 grocery stores with $634.2 billion in revenues, 154,373 convenience stores with $165.6 billion annual sales, and 55,683 non-traditional food sellers with $450 billion turnover ( Global Strategy, 2013 ). Consisting of multi-tiered food supply chains in North America, FSCM is both large and complex so that innovations are highlighted in food industry to meet the steady growing rate of 2.9 percent yearly.

Companies from North America are aggressively viewing new food market with large numbers of potential consumers. Thus, a far reaching and more sophisticated food supply chain is prone to risks caused by disrupted disasters, oil prices’ fluctuations, and political upheavals, which greatly influence food production and transportation ( Lan et al. , 2016 ). Using advanced technologies such as bio-tech and ICT, food production and harvesting are innovatively improved ( Fraser et al. , 2016 ). Genetically modified organisms for instance with higher productivity and stronger anti-viruses are used in plants, mammals, fish, etc. ( Hemphill and Banerjee, 2015 ).

For innovative warehousing of food, robotics and automation have been adopted in North America in food and beverage supply chain. Given the improved efficiencies in terms of sorting, packing, and processing, funding sources, in recent years, have invested in warehouse automation significantly. In 2012, the US Government granted $50 million to research institutes and universities for robotics aligning with creation of the next generation of collaborative robots from the Obama administration’s National Robotics Initiative ( Pransky, 2015 ). With the assistance from robots, warehouses for food and beverage are the most technologically advanced for facilitating FSCM.

Logistics and transportation are innovatively improved from improving the railroad, flight routes, marine and land roads. North America has the comprehensive and satisfactory logistics network. Currently, Genesee & Wyoming Inc. agreed to acquire Providence and Worcester Railroad Company (P&W) for approximately $126 million to meet customary closing conditions following the receipt of P&W shareholder approval in the fourth quarter of 2016 ( BusinessWire, 2016 ). 3PL plays a major role in food supply chain. The top 3PL and cold storage providers in 2016 are AFN, Niles, Ill., Allen Lund Company, La Canada, Calif., and Americold, Atalanta, Ga. who are the top listed companies using latest technologies in transportation management systems, warehouse management systems (WMSs), and logistics scrutiny systems for a better food supply chain services.

2.3.3 Asia Pacific

China, as the third food and drink producer has a turnover of €767 billion in 2011 which is the largest food entity in this area ( European Commission, 2016 ). As the biggest country in Asia pacific, China has around 400,000 food-related companies. Japan with €466 billion turnover between 2012 and 2013 employs 1.4 million workers. India, Australia, South Korea, and New Zealand, as major food producers in this area, their turnovers (2012-2013) are 95, 62, 32, and 27 billion Euro, respectively. It is no debate that this area is the most important food and beverage supplier from its enormous turnovers. However, FSCM in this area is mainly based on sacrificing manpower, for example China used 6.74 billion employees to achieve the total turnover, which is one-third more people than that in the EU.

With small margins attainable in most links of food supply chain in Asia Pacific, consolidation across various food categories and levels of the FSCM was necessary to reduce cost and maximize profits. To this end, a robust logistics and FSCM network program was initiated to enhanced focus on food availability and growing number of organized retail outlets for food supply chain development ( Simatupang and Sridharan, 2002 ). Take India for example, the government proposed a multi-tiered network design plan which upgrade current city/urban and rural supply chain to hyper/mega centers, urban, semi-urban, and rural structure in 2025 by full use of automation, verticalization, and lean principles as well as 3PL innovations ( Venkatesh et al. , 2015 ). Thus, organizations in India are going to rethink their mega food center supply chain models so as to handle higher variety and faster transitions within food supply chain. Yeole and Curran (2016) used tomato post-harvest loses from Nashik district of India for example to demonstrate reduced intermediaries in the supply chain network will save the losses. Additionally, supply chain operations like improper packaging techniques and lack of cold storage facilitates are need to be improved for the network.

Chinese-made food products are prone to be low price, low quality, and low safety ( Roth et al. , 2008 ). The main reason is the weak management in food supply chain. Despite China has the largest number of food companies, most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are extremely difficulty for the government to manage. Currently, Chinese Government proposed a set of regulations for ensuring the food safety from various aspects such as GB (Guo Biao – a national standard). Moreover, after some significant food scandals, Chinese Government put more efforts on the supervision of the food manufacturing and distribution ( Lam et al. , 2013 ). Food logistics facilities are also concentrated on from both government and companies since China’s connections to global food markets have important effects on food supply. Unfortunately, weak implementations are needed to be improved although the government has depicted to strength regulation, establish scrutiny systems, reform laws, and increase investment on basic infrastructures in FSCM. It is still far to say Chinese foods are low price, high quality and high safety.

Japan and South Korea always follow the strict monitoring within the total FSCM because they believe that their foods represent their culture. Thus, a food-obsessed country like Japan or South Korea uses national natural cuisine uniquely to reflect the pure environment. Since global integration of food supply chain, companies from both countries adopted supply chain strategies to improve relationship between diversification and a firm’s competitive performance ( Narasimhan and Kim, 2002 ). Food supply chain facilitates from both countries in production, warehouse, and distribution maybe the best in Asia Pacific. Take Japan for example, fishing industry plays an extremely crucial role in Japanese culture. Due to limited space for refrigerators and food storage spaces, its fish supply chain uses time-constraint multiple-layered supply chain network to guarantee freshness and quality ( Watanabe et al. , 2003 ). Recently, these countries moved into a smart FSCM using advanced technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT). Different types of sensors are used to facilitate various operations within entire food supply chain ( Park et al. , 2016 ).

Australia and New Zealand, as major food suppliers for the world, have mature FSCM in terms of consolidation of food industry partners and supply chain integrations. Australia proposed a green supply network where the consumers are able to seek to secure food ( Smith et al. , 2010 ). Recently, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization launched a digital agriculture plan to help Australian farmers and food industry parties to improve productivity and sustainability. Smart solutions for modern farming and FSCM are placed on specific attention by developing information systems which are used for ingesting, processing, summarizing, and analyzing data from multiple sensor systems ( Devin and Richards, 2016 ). New Zealand with its clean waters, fertile land, and excellent climate is a heaven for producing quality foods. This country is famous for its highly skilled workforce who is generating thousands of foods for the whole world with high standards in food quality and freshness ( Campbell et al. , 2006 ). Besides skilled workers, efficient and effective FSCM also makes the great success of food industry which is the largest manufacturing sector in New Zealand. The Ministry for Primary Industries is the primary food safety regulating authority in New Zealand, aiming to ensure food quality, safety, and reduce risks. Currently, New Zealand planned to take the leading role in global food security by adopting cutting-edge technologies such as Auto-ID which is a key technology of IoT for tracking and tracing animal products like cows and sheep ( Ghosh, 2016 ). As a result, food products from this country could be monitored from sources to consumption phase, which makes real total lifecycle management for each food.

3. IT systems for FSCM

It is no debate that IT systems are essential for FSCM where so many things can go wrong such as trucks, food suppliers, data entry, etc. This section takes the traceability and decision-making systems for FSCM as examples to review the state-of-the-art situations that are useful for practitioners when they are implementing IT-based solutions.

3.1 Traceability systems

Traceability of a food refers to a data trail which follows the food physical trial through various statuses ( Smith et al. , 2005 ). As earlier as two decades ago, US food industry has developed, implemented, and maintained traceability systems to improve FSCM, differentiate foods with subtle quality attributes, and facilitate tracking for food safety ( Golan et al. , 2004a ). Some systems deeply track food from retailer back to the sources like farm and some only focus on key points in a supply chain. Some traceability systems only collect data for tracking foods to the minute of production or logistics trajectory, while others track only cursory information like in a large geographical area ( Dickinson and Bailey, 2002 ).

This section analyzes total 19 key papers published from 2003 to 2017. Table II presents a categorized analysis in terms of tracing objects, technology, district, and features.

From Table II , it could be observed that food traceability is paid much attention from EU where people do care more about the food safety and quality. Associated technologies are developing fast so that cutting-edge techniques are widely used for various food tracing and tracking. Take RFID for example, 73.68 percent of the reviewed papers adopt this Auto-ID technology for food traceability. Moreover, agri-foods are placed special attention to trace and track because as the most important perishable products, their freshness and quality are eyed by the consumers.

3.2 Decision-making systems

Besides the traceability systems in FSCM, other decision-makings such as integration/collaboration, planning/scheduling, fleet management, and WMS are also widely used in food industry. This section presents a review of total 26 papers which are related to the above topics. Table III reveals these papers from 2005 to 2007 with specific decisions, countries/area (identified by the corresponding author), used technologies, and features.

We selected two typical publications in each year for forming Table III from which several observations could be achieved. First, European countries are prone to be more use of systems to assist decision-makings in FSCM. Second, systems used in earlier stage are based on internet solutions. Currently, model-based systems using advanced technologies are widely reported in FSCM decision-makings. Third, focuses of decision-making shift from supply chain integration in earlier years to sustainable and specific problem solving cases in recent years.

4. Implementation of FSCM

4.1 reported cases.

Case studies from implementing various IT systems in FSCM are significant to get some lessons and insights, which are meaningful for industry practitioners and research academia. This section reports several cases using different systems for facilitating their operations or decision-makings in food supply chain from 2007 to 2017. They are categorized in the following Table IV which includes key information like company name, district, system, and improvement.

From the reported cases, it could be observed that, European countries have much more successful cases on using various IT support systems in FSCM. While, cases from Australia, China, etc. are scarcely presented. Another interesting finding is that before 2010, IT systems are used for optimization or supply chain coordination decision-makings. However, currently, companies are more concentrating on the sustainability and environmental performance in the food supply chain. For example, environmental influences like CO 2 emissions and waste reduction are widely considered.

4.2 Data-driven implementations

Data, usually used for decision-makings, have been considered in FSCM for various purposes. Data-driven implementation in FSCM is categorized into two dimensions in this paper. First is the simulation-based modeling which focuses on adopting different data for FSCM optimization or decision-making. The other is data collection from practical implementations for supporting IT systems for various purposes such as traceability, risk assessment, and so on.

For simulation-based modeling, studies mainly focus on establishing various simulation models which adopt different types of data such as product quality, customer demand for different decision-makings and predictions. In order to meet increasing demand on food attributes such as integrity and diversity, Vorst et al. (2009) proposed a simulation model which is based on an integrated approach to foresee food quality and sustainability issues. This model enables effective and efficient decision support on food supply chain design. FSCM is becoming more complex and dynamic due to the food proliferation to meet diversifying and globalizing markets. To make a transparent food supply chain, Trienekens et al. (2012) simulated typical dynamics like demand, environmental impacts, and social aspects to enhance the information sharing and exchanging. It is found that food supply chain actors should provide differentiated information to meet the dynamic and diversified demands for transparency information. As a wide application of Auto-ID technology for tracking and tracing various items ( Zhong, Dai, Qu, Hu and Huang, 2013 ; Zhong, Li, Pang, Pan, Qu and Huang, 2013 ; Qiu et al. , 2014 ; Guo et al. , 2015 ; Scherhaufl et al. , 2015 ), traceability data plays an important role in supporting FSCM. Folinas et al. (2006) introduced a model which uses the traceability data for simulating the act guideline for all food entities in a supply chain. The assessment of information underlines that traceability data enabled by information flow is significant for various involved parties in food supply chain to ensure food safety. Wong et al. (2011) used a model to evaluate the postponement as an option to strengthen food supply chain performance in a soluble coffee manufacturer. The simulation model shows that cost savings including reduction of cycle stock are obtained by delaying the labeling and packaging processes. Bajželj et al. (2014) simulated the food demand to examine the impacts of food supply chain on climate mitigation. This paper proposes a transparent and data-driven model for showing that improved diets and reduced food waste are critical to deliver emissions reductions. Trkman et al. (2010) used a structural equation model based on data from 130 companies worldwide to examine the relationship between analytical capabilities in FSCM. It is observed that the information support is stronger than the effect of business process orientation in food supply chain. Data-driven model was also proposed by developing a measure of the captured business external and internal data for food productivity, and supply chain value ( Brynjolfsson et al. , 2011 ). This paper obtains 179 firms’ data from USA where 5-6 percent increase in their output and productivity by using IT solutions. Low and Vogel (2011) used a national representative data on local food market to evaluate the food supply chain where small and medium-sized farms dominate the market. This paper finds that direct-to-consumer sales of food are greatly affected by climate and topography which favor perishable food production. Akhtar et al. (2016) presented a model by using data collected from agri-food supply chains to examine adaptive leadership performance in FSCM. This paper thus depicts that how global food supply chain leaders can use data-driven approach to create financial and non-financial sustainability. Hasuike et al. (2014) demonstrated a model to simulate uncertain crop productions and consumers’ demands so as to optimize the food supply chain profit. This simulation model is based on stochastic programming that accommodates surplus foods among stores in a local area. Manning et al. (2016) used a quantitative benchmarking model to drive sustainability in food supply chain. Li and Wang (2015) based on networked sensor data worked out a dynamic supply chain model to improve food tracking. Recently, Big Data is emerging as a crucial IT for instructing decisions in food supply chain. In order to differentiate and identify final food products, Ahearn et al. (2016) simulated environmental sustainability and food safety to improve food supply chain by using the consumer demands big data. This paper features a sustainability metric in agricultural production.

For practical data-driven system, various data are captured and collected to decision-makings in FSCM. Papathanasiou and Kenward (2014) produced a top level environmental decision support system by using the data collected from European food supply chain. It is found that socio-economic aspects have more influences on effective environmental decision support than technical aspects. Martins et al. (2008) introduced a shelf-life dating complex systems using sensor data to monitor, diagnose and control food quality. As the increasing focus on healthy diet, food composition and dietary assessment systems are significant for nutrition professionals. Therefore, Pennington et al. (2007) developed a system using the appropriateness of data for the intended audience. Most food and nutrition professionals will be beneficial from educating themselves about the database system. Perrot et al. (2011) presented an analysis of the complex food systems which are using various data such as supply chain dynamics, knowledge, and real-time information to make different decisions in FSCM. Tatonetti et al. (2012) illustrated a data-driven prediction system which is used for drug effects and interactions that US Food and Drug Administration has put great effects on improving the detection and prediction. Ahn et al. (2011) , given increasing availability of information from food preparation, studied a data-driven system for flavor network and food pairing principles. Jacxsens et al. (2010) using actual microbiological food safety performance data designed a food safety management system to systematically detect food quality. The diagnosis is achieved in quantitative to get insight in the food businesses in nine European companies. Karaman et al. (2012) presented a food safety system by full using of data from plants where white cheese, fermented milk products and butter are produced. A case study from a Turkish dairy industry is demonstrated the feasibility and practicality of the presented system. In order to assess the lifecycle for sewage sludge and food waste, a system based on anaerobic codigestion of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and dewatered sewage sludge was introduced ( Righi et al. , 2013 ). Environmental performances of various scenarios in the NE Italy case studies are evaluated to show energy saving using the data-driven system. Jacxsens et al. (2011) introduced a sort of tools for the performance examination and improvement of food safety management system by the support of food business data. These tools are able to help various end-users to selection process, to improve food safety, and to enhance performance. Food safety management systems usually use traceability and status data to examine food quality and freshness. Tomašević et al. (2013) took the Serbian meat industry for example to report food safety management systems implementation from 77 producers. Laux and Hurburgh (2012) reported a quality management system using food traceability data like maintain records for the grain scrutiny. A traceability index is used to quantify a lot size of grain in an elevator in this paper. Herrero et al. (2010) introduced a revisiting mixed crop-livestock system using farms’ data to achieve a smart investment in sustainable food production. By carefully consider the inputs of fertilizer, water, and feed, waste and environmental impacts are minimized to support farmers to intensify production. Tzamalis et al. (2016) presented a food safety and quality management system used in 75 SME by using the production data from the fresh-cut producing sector. This paper provides a best practice score for the assessment to ensure food quality and safety.

5. Current challenges and future perspectives

This section summarizes current challenges and highlights future perspectives in supply chain network structure, data collection, decision-making models, and implementations.

5.1 Supply chain network structure

Food quality and safety heavily rely on an efficient and effective supply chain network structure. As the increasing globalization demands for more healthy and nutritious food, current structure is facing several challenges. First, the concentration of design and development of a food supply chain network structure is placed upon a sole distribution system or a WMS. Mixed-integer linear programming models are widely used to suggest proper locations and distribution network configurations ( Manzini and Accorsi, 2013 ). An entire and global structure is necessary. Second, optimizations are always considered within a network structure. However, the common considerations are planning, scheduling, profit and cost. Environmental impacts and sustainable performance are omitted. As increasing consumptions of various resources, a sustainable supply chain network structure considering waste reduction and greenhouse gas emissions is needed. Third, with the development of advanced technologies such as IoT, traditional network structure is no longer suitable for facilitating the food supply chain operations because large number of digital devices, sensors, and robots are equipped along the supply chain. Thus, an innovative and open structure for FSCM is required.

An integrated global architecture: the final goal of this architecture is to control global food chain in both optimal and interdependent levels to make involved stakeholders for a closed-loop management and scrutiny. For achieving this purpose, new conceptual frameworks, effective supporting tools, integrated models, and enabled technologies are needed further investigation ( MacCarthy et al. , 2016 ; Talaei et al. , 2016 ).

Sustainable food supply chain: in the future, sustainable business in food industry can be harvested by reducing the environmental impacts, enhancing food waste recycling, and strengthening facilities sharing. New mechanisms and coordinated development along with other industries like manufacturing and economy are basic supports for achieving the sustainability ( Green et al. , 2012 ; Irani and Sharif, 2016 ; Lan and Zhong, 2016 ).

Physical internet (PI) for FSCM: PI is an open global logistics system by using encapsulation, interfaces, and protocols to convert physical objects into digital items to achieve operational interconnectivity ( Montreuil, 2011 ). Using the PI principle, FSCM for food handling, movement, storage, and delivery could be transformed toward global logistics efficiency and sustainability.

5.2 Data collection

Data-enabled decision-making plays an important role in FSCM so that without an approachable data collection method, it is difficult to carry out data-based analytics. Despite wide adoption of data collection approaches used in food supply chain, several challenges still exist so that data-driven decision-makings are confined. In the first place, manual and paper-based operations are common in food supply chain, especially in agri-food logistics. Data from these approaches are usually prone to be inaccurate and incomplete. As a result, decisions based on such data are unreasonable ( Zhong et al. , 2016 ). Moreover, various data collection devices such as sensors, smart phones, and GPS have different data formats that are usually unstructured and heterogeneous. Integration and sharing of these data among the food supply chain are extremely difficult ( Pang et al. , 2015 ). Finally, current data collection system cannot deal with huge number of data capturing in a simultaneous fashion. Due to the limited central calculation capacity and signal transmission methods, data collisions and jams could be happened occasionally.

IoT-enabled smart data collector: this type of data collection method is based on IoT technologies like smart Auto-ID and smart sensors which are designed with multi-functional ability. They are able to collect data under different situations such as temperature-sensitive condition for perishable products or wines. Thus, they are designed in a wearable or flexible way to be easily deployed and operated ( Wu, Yue, Jin and Yen, 2016 ). A certain learnable ability is built upon each collector which is central managed and controlled by a knowledge-enabled super computer that works as human brain to coordinate vast number of collectors.

Adaptive smart robot: these data collectors are specially designed by twining robotics and smart sensors so that they are able to fulfill some operations and capture data in parallel. They are useful in some extremely hazardous environment like super low temperature for ice cream or frozen seafood. Such adaptive smart robot is based on advanced technologies which make it to perform like a human ( Zhong et al. , 2016 ). It can sense environment and adaptively make decisions based on real-time data from the environmental variations.

5.3 Decision-making models

As more and more data aggregated in food supply chain, decision-making models require associated knowledge from such data for more precise and systematic resolutions. Traditional approaches packaged or embedded into decision-making models are not able to deal with Big Data challenges. First of all, decision-making models in FSCM need various data for different purposes such as optimization of planning and scheduling, reduction of waste, etc. However, computational time will be so long that immense data are input into these models. Second, data-driven decision models used for food supply chain optimization do not have evaluation criteria to validate their effectiveness since numerical studies are commonly used in literature ( Meneghetti and Monti, 2015 ). Such approaches may not be suitable under Big Data era. Third, current models are focusing on a specific problem driven by a single company or a particular food supply chain. Multi-functional models are scarcely reported. By making full use of food industry Big Data, multi-objective and generic models could be achieved.

Multi-functional models: these models are able to make full use of Big Data from food supply chain. Some advanced and intelligent models or algorithms like deep machine learning will be integrated into these models so that multi-objectives could be defined ( Balaji and Arshinder, 2016 ). They are capable of selecting associated data for different objective functions through training, learning, and calculating.

Smart decision models: future decision models can work collaboratively in a smart way. With the intelligent learning capability based on Big Data, a number of models will be created to perform smart decisions on real-time basis ( Zhong et al. , 2015 ). Advanced hierarchical or parallel frameworks for these models are required, thus, smart models are able to invite other models for seamless co-operation.

5.4 Implementations

FSCM implementations from real-life industries are based on cutting-edge technologies which are used for addressing some issues faced by food supply chain. Reported cases from literature mainly concentrated on verifying some hypothesis and presenting the improvements after using an IT system ( Canavari et al. , 2010 ; Soto-Silva et al. , 2016 ). Few studies highlighted the natural characteristics of food supply chain or generic issues summarized from a set of companies so that the essence of FSCM could be figured out. After that, suitable technologies can be picked up to work out the solutions for the company or involved parties in food supply chain. Regarding the complexity of food supply chain, some important issues involving waste, re-use of resources, facility sharing, greenhouse gas emissions, and holistic lifecycle management are still unaddressed ( Genovese et al. , 2017 ). Take food waste for example, about 40 percent of total food produced in the USA goes as waste yearly which is equivalent of $165 billion ( Pandey et al. , 2016 ). Such vast wasted food not only physically influences our environment by polluting the water, but also significantly increases the CO 2 emission since large number of pollution will be generated when they are deteriorating. Thus, reduction of food waste requires the actions at different echelons within food supply chain like food production, delivery, storage, retailing, and recycling. Regarding different echelons, associated solutions such as food production management system, WMS, logistics management system, etc. should be highly integrated in terms of data sharing and seamless synchronization.

Emerging cutting-edge techniques may contribute to system integration in the near future. First, Cloud technology has been used to integrate segregated sector using minimum resources. It allows involved stakeholders to access various services via software as a service, platform as a service, and infrastructure as a service ( Singh et al. , 2015 ). Through Cloud-enabled solution, the information sharing and collaborative working principle could be achieved by using basic computing and internet equipment. Second, IoT technologies like Auto-ID and smart sensors have been widely implemented in manufacturing and aerospace industry ( Zhong, Li, Pang, Pan, Qu and Huang, 2013 ; Whitmore et al. , 2015 ). IoT-based solutions for FSCM are able to provide an entire product lifecycle management via real-time data capturing, logistics visibility, and quality traceability. Additionally, within an IoT-based environment, every objects with sensing, networking and calculating ability can detect and interact with each other to facilitate logistics operations and decision-making in a fashion that is ubiquitous, real-time, and intelligent. Third, Big Data Analytics for FSCM has received increasing attention since it is able to deal with immense data generated from food supply chain. Big Data Analytics can help food companies to make graphical decisions with more accurate data input by excavating hidden and invaluable information or knowledge which could be used for their daily operations. With such information, ultimate sustainable food supply chain could be realized by optimal decisions.

In the future implementation, giant companies play important roles in leading the food supply chain toward a green and sustainable direction. To this end, collaborations with green relationships could lead to a win-win situation that large companies will get the economic benefits, and in turn the food supply chain members like SMEs could also be benefited. That green relationship is based on the joint value creation by using new business models in terms of internal and external green integration which will be enabled by advanced technologies ( Chiou et al. , 2011 ; Gunasekaran et al. , 2015 ). So these companies may take initial actions to be equipped by advanced IT systems, while up-stream and down-stream parties within food supply chain can follow up for a green future.

Finally, the implementations need the involvement of government bodies which are going to work out strategic plans for guiding and supporting various enterprises toward a better future. Thus, Big Data Analytics is extremely important for these bodies to figure out up-to-data statistics report, current status of a food supply chain, and industrial feedbacks. Further to identify the strategies, they can use advanced prediction models or data-driven decision-making systems for assisting deeper analysis. As a result, each individual end-user could be beneficial from future implementation.

6. Conclusions

As the increasing awareness of food quality, safety, and freshness, FSCM is facing ever pressure to meet these requirements. How to upgrade and transform current FSCM to suit the ever increasing demands in the future? This paper presents a state-of-the-art review in FSCM from systems, implementations, and worldwide movements. Current challenges and future perspectives from supply chain network structure, data collection, decision-making models, and implementations are highlighted.

advanced technologies like Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, and IoT will be employed to transforming and upgrading FSCM to a smart future;

data-driven decision-makings for FSCM would be adopted for achieving more sustainable and adaptive food supply chain; and

FSCM implementations will be facilitated by the cutting-edge technologies-enabled solutions with more user friendliness and customization.

Number of articles in a yearly view

Organization of this review paper

List of models for FSCM

Traceability systems for FSCM

Decision-making systems for FSCM

Reported cases using IT systems in FSCM

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Food loss and waste

Quantitative food loss in the global supply chain

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The future of the food supply chain: A systematic literature review and research directions towards sustainability, resilience, and technology adoption

In recent years, our food supply chain facing various disruptions shows a need for higher resilience and sustainability. To better prepare for future uncertainties the food supply chain may encounter, it is imperative to understand the status quo of the food supply chain resilience literature, which focuses on deploying digital technology and integrating sustainability in supply chain management. Motivated by this, our study critically reviews the literature on food supply chain resilience against different types of disruptions, identifies research gaps, and provides a reference for the food supply chain to respond to uncertainties more effectively through digital technology and sustainability integration. To fulfil this objective, we perform a systematic literature review of academic journal articles from 2010 to 2020. Our study is novel in investigating different potential strategies to respond to various disruptions, emphasising the role of digital technologies and sustainability. The findings complement existing literature on supply chain resilience and serve as guides to supply chain practitioners facing disruptions. In addition, we investigate possible ways of adopting and optimising digital technologies to enhance food supply chain resilience and indicate areas where a sustainable future can be achieved through a more resilient food supply chain powered by digital innovations.

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A review of supply chain quality management practices in sustainable food networks

Patrick robert burgess.

a Department of International Studies and Consultancy, Aeres University of Applied Sciences, Dronten, the Netherlands

b School of Physics, Engineering, and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

Funlade T. Sunmola

Sigrid wertheim-heck.

c Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands

Supply chain quality management practices are necessary to improve processes, meet consumer quality needs, and enhance supply chain quality management performance in sustainable food networks. Food supply chain quality management and associated practices are considerably studied in global food systems, less so for alternative food networks. There are salient differences between global food systems and alternative food networks, which may reflect on the applicable supply chain quality management practices in the food systems and networks. This paper reviews the literature on supply chain quality management practices, with a focus on alternative food networks. A systematic literature review methodology is adopted, resulting in the analysis of seventy-eight papers, identifying a total of one hundred and three supply chain quality management practices. The identified supply chain quality management practices were analysed in relation to their link to a) place, production, and producer and b) link to (bio)processes. Emerging themes from the analysis are discussed, and some areas of future research were put forward.

1. Introduction

Supply chain quality management (SCQM) has emerged from combining supply chain management and quality management [ 1 ], shifting from an internal organisational view of quality management to a supply chain-wide perspective. Supply chain quality management is the coordination and integration of all supply chain activities and stakeholders to monitor, analyse, and continually improve services, processes, and products, leading to value addition to meet the needs of consumers [ 2 ]. There are many benefits of SCQM, including enhanced supply chain integration, improved customer satisfaction, improved organisational performance, and improved supply chain performance [ 3 , 4 ]. SCQM aims to improve quality performance, integrate supply chain members, and enable consumer-driven value addition created through upstream and downstream linkages in the supply chain [ 5 , 6 ].

Supply chain quality management is indispensable to the food industry [ 7 ]. Food companies can improve their performance by adopting SCQM [ 8 ], arising from, for example, increased food safety, improved reputation, enhanced recall procedures, reduced quality risks, and improved consumer quality perceptions [ 9 ]. The need for food SCQM spans across food systems. A food system refers to all people and activities required to grow, transport, and consume food [ 10 ], encompassing networks of food supply chains. A food supply chain is a series of actors, processes, and operational activities, taking food from a raw material state to a value-added product to meet the end consumer's needs [ 11 ]. In such supply chains, consumer trust, particularly regarding quality, is paramount. However, it is increasingly becoming clear that consumer trust differs across networks of supply chains in food systems [ 12 ]. For example, consumer trust for quality in the supply chain of global food systems has become impacted on due to intentional and unintentional food incidents, like food fraud, foodborne pathogens, and quality risks [ 13 ]. In contrast, alternative food systems (AFS) are increasingly being trusted by consumers due to direct interaction and close relationships between stakeholders [ 14 ]. An alternative food system is built to address the issues faced in global food systems and is driven by consumer quality and sustainability needs [ 15 ].

Alternative food systems incorporate initiatives that aim to restructure their organisation and supply chain through reduced physical and social distances. These initiatives are commonly referred to as alternative food networks (AFN) [ 16 , 17 ]. The emergence of AFNs dates back to the 1960s when a movement to (re) localise (i.e. moving back from global to local food systems) food consumption and production had occurred [ 18 ]. AFNs use alternative and sustainable food supply chain practices that are developed to offset the impact of supply chains in global, industrialised food systems [ 19 ], particularly regarding sustainability in AFNs, i.e. reduced food miles, improved ecological production methods, fair value for all stakeholders, and improved relationships [ 20 ].

Within AFNs, quality and sustainability are key contributors to value addition [ 21 ], and are increasingly being studied. Quality in AFNs has been addressed concerning consumer preferences [ 22 ], consumer motivation [ 23 ], consumer satisfaction [ 24 ], transparency [ 25 ], and sustainability [ 17 , [26] , [27] , [28] ]. The characteristics of AFNs lead to differences in quality compared to the supply chain networks in global food systems. SCQM at global levels is mainly developed according to industrialised quality systems like GlobalGap, International Standards Organisation (ISO), and International Food Standard (IFS), and may be challenging to implement in AFNs, especially in small-medium enterprises (SMEs) [ 29 ]. SMEs are often found in the AFNs, and less so are large organisations [ 30 ]. Quality in AFNs is based on the (re)connection between consumption and production and (re)establishing trust, resulting in AFN initiatives that may fall outside the scope of institutionalised food quality management systems. Falling outside these quality management systems may lead to barriers such as a) market entry and b) potential for non-compliance when using more informal distribution channels, such as a local farm market [ 29 ]. The differences in the requirements for SCQM between AFN in the alternative food systems and the supply chain networks in global food systems also have some bearing on the SCQM practices adopted.

Supply chain quality management practices are a set of activities and processes adopted to achieve quality goals from producers to consumers [ 31 ]. The literature identifies a variety of SCQM practices that apply to supply chains in general. They include quality leadership (top-level management), customer focus, IT-enabled organisation, supply chain integration, quality management, customer quality involvement, information sharing, cooperation, and continuous improvement [ 32 , 33 ]. These practices have been highlighted in literature reviews on SCQM practices for mainstream supply chains in global food systems, e.g. SCQM practices in food manufacturing [ 34 ], and SCQM management practices in fresh and perishable food supply chains [ 35 ]. Literature is emerging regarding SCQM in AFNs, illustrating the importance of quality management, quality controls, and processes for stakeholders in AFNs [ 36 ], and enhanced performance and conformance through quality controls and assurances [ 37 ].

Identifying relevant practices is important in facilitating an appropriate understanding of SCQM in and between different food systems and networks and enabling improved levels of supply chain performance. Until now, research has mainly specified the SCQM management in supply chains that are adopting top-down, supply-driven approaches (i.e. global food systems), while research is limited regarding food supply chains that are designed on a value-driven, bottom-up approach, where quality is defined from the consumer side (i.e. alternative food network). This paper contributes to the literature on SCQM practices focusing on alternative food networks, applying a systematic literature review methodology to establish from the literature the SCQM practices associated with AFNs. The research aims to provide answers to the following research questions: RQ1: What are the supply chain quality management practices in alternative food networks? RQ2: How do the supply chain quality management practices link to quality conventions in alternative food networks?

Section 2 contains an overview of sustainable food networks, emphasising AFNs and insights into SCQM practices in global food supply chains. The research methodology adopted in this paper centres on systematic literature review (SLR) and is presented in Section 3 . The results of the SLR conducted are presented in Section 4 . The emerging themes observed from the SLR are contained in Section 5 , followed in Section 6 by a discussion of the results and a proposal for follow-up research. The paper ends in Section 7 with conclusions.

2. Background

2.1 . supply chain design in alternative food networks.

Sustainable food networks aim to deliver value to stakeholders while upholding social, environmental, and economic activities, processes, and outcomes [ 17 ]. Within sustainable food networks, some initiatives, such as AFNs, are looking towards offering sustainable alternative products compared to those in more global food systems [ 38 ]. Food supply chains in the global food systems and alternative food networks differ by design, where value can be defined by either a demand-driven or commodity-driven approach [ 39 ]. Commodity-driven supply chains focus on cost reduction, increased margins, efficiency, and improved market share. Consumer-driven supply chains are based on differentiation, relationships, transparency, communication and fair profit sharing among stakeholders [ 40 ].

The consumer-driven supply chain characteristics are found in many AFNs. In consumer-driven chains, producer relations develop strategies to create value, socio-technical innovations, and producer associations. At the consumer level, there is a desire to understand the product's origin and establish provenance. Processing and retailing stakeholders are locally based, differ in size, scale, and offerings, are focused on quality, and are built to support transparency. Institutional frameworks are more locally oriented, where a local authority is involved and has lower levels of bureaucracy. Associational frameworks are relational and trust-based, formulated regionally, and can also be collaborative [ 41 ].

The types of AFNs defined by Ref. [ 42 ] provide an understanding of how supply chains are structured in AFNs. The AFN types are a) F ace-to-face (direct supply chain) , where consumers and producers interact directly, and consumers buy directly from the producer. Information flow, authenticity and trust in this type are facilitated through direct interaction; b) Spatial proximity, where products are produced, processed, and retailed in a specific region. In this scenario, the consumer is made aware of ‘local’ by the point of sales. This category also includes sales through restaurants, pubs, hospitals, schools, care homes and prisons; and c) Spatially extended refers to when information about the product and processes is provided to consumers outside the production region using labelling, certification, and branding. There are many initiatives within the three types of AFNs, and their diversity is notable. Some examples of the AFN initiatives fall under short food supply chains, local food systems, regional food supply chains, farmer markets, e-commerce/direct channels, organic food supply chains, farm shops and markets, urban agriculture, box schemes, fair trade, and community-supported agriculture [ 17 , 43 , 44 ]. These AFNs are value-driven and involve sustainable food entrepreneurs who develop their organisations through experience and aim to professionalise operations and practices to meet future business ambitions [ 45 ].

There are some significant differences between global food supply chains and alternative food supply chains (i.e. the supply chains in AFNs). In particular, the supply chains AFNs aim to reduce social and physical distances between producers and consumers, have high levels of supply chain integration, higher levels of transparency and more fair value distribution, and a reliance on trust instead of structural information communication [ 44 , 46 ]. Other key differences include the type of assurance systems employed (i.e. third-party vs. socially monitored), the size of actors in the supply chain, where the economies of scale benefit larger organisations in global supply chains, and decision power across the supply chain [ 46 ]. Supply chains in AFNs show a positive relationship with economic and social performance in terms of creating a fairer price for producers and ethical farming practices. Global food supply chains benefit from more well-developed and efficient transport networks, improving environmental performance [ 47 ]. The practices employed in the supply chains also result in substantial differences, where a practice that supports the supply chains in global food systems may act as a barrier for those in AFNs, driving a need for understanding the practices. The development of SCQM practices can support these ambitions through, for example, increasing trust and the ability to meet quality requirements for improved access to markets.

2.2. Quality conventions in alternative food networks

Alternative food networks are defined in several ways, some of which are used to reduce the distance between producer and consumer, support smaller farm/organisation size, use of holistic or organic production methods, use of local sales channels and cooperatives, and support commitment to the triple bottom line of sustainability [ 48 ]. The alternative and sustainable supply chain practices (i.e. organic, fair trade, and proving the designation of origin) in AFNs endeavour to give consumers a substitute choice compared to the offerings of supply chains in the global food systems [ 17 , 19 ]. Supply chains in AFNs are often short and reflect the desire to reduce physical and social distances between buyers and producers [ 42 ]. The links between stakeholders are also important, as close and direct supply chain relationships are fundamental to AFNs [ 16 ]. In addition to the close linkages, the supply chain in AFNs focuses on enhanced levels of the three-bottom line of sustainability [ 17 ]. The three-bottom line in the AFNs relates to the need for fair economic returns for buyers and sellers, social responsibility, and ecologically responsible production and distribution [ 17 ]. The literature suggests that the AFN involves stakeholders who desire to provide offerings outside the supply chains in global food systems [ 17 ].

AFNs are built on practices for food provisioning that differ from those in global food systems [ 49 ]. AFNs are usually grassroots organisations that work towards re-organising the agri-food sector, focusing on one or multiple sustainability pillars (economic, society, environment) [ 50 ]. Quality is difficult to define in AFNs. AFNs specify quality from the consumer end of the supply chain, as [ 50 ] express several quality drivers in AFNs, including commercial (price and value), industrial (compliance with standards), domestic (trust and traditional production), public (trademarks and brands), inspirational (value conveyed by-product), and technological. [ 50 ] also discuss the role of hard quality (i.e. price, standards, trademarks) and soft quality (tradition, environment and community, trust, and community) and highlight the importance of soft quality within the alternative food networks. Alternative food networks have been conceptualised to capture a range of sustainable food transitions, including, for example, (re) localisation (bringing food from global to local), short food supply chains (reduced physical and social distances), and sustainable production methods (organic). Alternative food networks often cover a broader context to support an alternative economic space that opposes the more comprehensive, global food system approach. The alternative food network approach can foster regional economies by supporting technological, organisational, and territorial transformation [ 41 ], indicating a need for socio-technical innovations.

Quality is a central theme in the AFNs [ 51 ]. Unlike quality in the food supply chains in global food systems defined by multinational players (i.e. supermarkets) and governmental institutions [ 51 ], quality in the AFN is consumer-driven. It reflects on consumer perceptions of freshness, taste, and fair value. AFNs also link to quality through organic production, direct sales channels, and protected denomination of origin [ 17 ]. The norms value and standards have been referred to in literature as the quality conventions, and they fall under two main categories a) link to place, production, and producer, and b) ecological (link to bioprocesses) [ 44 ], see Table 1 .

Quality conventions in AFNs*.

Source [ 42 , 44 ]: *Typical (Speciality products specific to a region or place of production). *Traditional (production and processing methods specific to regions and products).

The quality conventions in Table 1 are connected to quality and sustainability in the supply chain of AFNs. AFNs aim to achieve several levels of sustainability. Economic outcomes focus on producers' livelihoods and territory development. Environmental outcomes focus on sustainable farming and food miles, and social outcomes focus on social justice and political action [ 38 ]. [ 52 ] assess economic, social, and environmental sustainability factors in AFNs. Critical economic factors were improving the outlook for farmers' growth, starting relationships between consumers and producers, and intensifying the link to the local economy. Social factors that stood out included agritourism, inclusion, improved commitment, and improved information regarding nutritional value. A life cycle analysis study by Ref. [ 53 ] shows that AFNs have both benefits and challenges regarding sustainability, and the results suggest that optimisation techniques, process improvements and digital technology can play a role in the sustainable benefits of improving supply chains in AFNs.

2.3. Supply chain quality management practices in global food systems

Food SCQM requires traceability, trust, quality monitoring, and the adoption of emerging technologies [ 54 , 55 ]. Also important are the practices for food SCQM [ 56 , 57 ]. Practices in supply chain management research have been categorised. For example [ 58 ], identify six categories: supply chain integration, information sharing, customer service, customer relationships, supplier relationships, and postponement. Concerning food, the SCQM practice categories are supplier quality management, top management leadership and commitment, human resource management, quality of information and information system management, supply chain integration, customer focus, and internal quality management (i.e. process management and logistics management) [ 35 , 59 ]. Consumer quality perceptions drive SCQM practices in response to their needs (i.e. diets, religion, values) and desire for more sustainable, high-quality food supply chains [ 60 ]. Table 2 presents an overview of food SCQM practices in the literature associated with food supply chains in global food systems.

SCQM practices in global Food systems.

The SCQM practices have been associated with enhanced food SCQM performance [ 35 , 61 ] and sustainability performance in food supply chains [ 59 , 62 ]. Adopting digital technologies is becoming essential for SCQM practices and performance in food supply chains [ 63 ]. Digital technologies, for example, AI, Blockchain, Big Data, and IoT, can enhance the traceability, trust, integrity, and provenance of critical process steps in food supply chains [ 64 ]. Several vital areas for integrating technology and SCQM include establishing digital platforms for customers and suppliers and using digital supply chain technologies to support performance and processes [ 65 ]. Digital traceability and transparency systems can effectively support SCQM and quality assurances in the supply chains [ 66 ]. Such technologies are often developed for large-scale, influential stakeholders in food supply chains [ 67 ]. Work is now emerging on digital technologies for SCQM in the AFN supply chains [ 68 ].

3. Methodology

3.1. overall research approach.

A systematic literature review is adopted in this work and aims to identify the practices for SCQM in AFNs. A systematic literature review is a systematic, explicit, reproducible method to identify, evaluate and interpret current publications and documents [ 69 , 70 ]. There are some important considerations before undertaking a systematic literature review, including the availability of literature in a domain, the absence of recent or high-quality reviews, and gaps in existing reviews [ 71 ], all of which are key considerations in the current review. In a systematic literature review, an integrative approach summarises existing literature and identifies patterns and topics concerning past publications. The main steps in the systematic literature review are defining the research problem and question, determining the characteristics of primary studies, retrieving potentially relevant literature, selecting pertinent literature, synthesising literature, and reporting results [ 69 , 72 , 73 ]. See Fig. 1 for the steps taken in this research.

Slr phases and steps.

3.2. Planning and protocol development

Prior to undertaking the systematic literature review, a research protocol for the review was developed with the research team. The protocol adapted elements of the PRISMA checklist to prepare and align the research. The title, rationale, research objectives, research questions, eligibility criteria (inclusion and exclusion criteria), information sources, search strategy, data management, section process, data collection process, outcomes, and prioritisation (including analysis type) were developed in this process. Phase one involved establishing the need for research, planning, and protocol development. Standardised search strings were applied, reviewed, and amended to find relevant papers for answering the research aim and questions. The search string that was adopted is TITLE-ABS-KEY ("Food" AND "Supply Chain" AND "Quality" AND "Management"). The reference manager, Mendeley, was used. Science Direct, Scopus, and Emerald Insight are the three chosen databases for this study. Scopus can be referred to as a justified database as one of the two most extensive databases of scientific articles. Reviewers using systematic literature review methods are recommended to use two or more databases. Based on a search most recently updated in early January 2023, 1873 hits for further filtering and analysis were identified. Selected studies for full paper review were put in a combined PDF document for review and analysis.

3.3. Selection of papers and quality assessment

According to Ref. [ 73 ], determining the required characteristics of a primary study is an essential step in systematic reviews. The basis of inclusion and criteria should align with the primary objective of the research. This review identifies SCQM practices in AFNs and examines their correlation to AFN supply chain quality conventions. Therefore, this research applies inclusion and exclusion criteria tailored to achieve this aim. Given the narrow scope of the paper (focusing on supply chains in AFNs), the criteria for the unit of analysis, the method employed in the selected papers, and the quality of journals are widely established. The keywords and Boolean operators were established by studying relevant and related literature review studies. Other areas to consider in setting up the review process include search periods, search fields, subject area, document type, language, document relevance, and the selection of other inclusion and exclusion criteria to support the aim [ 74 ].

Before the screening process, the researchers evaluated and agreed upon inclusion and exclusion criteria. The basis for inclusion criteria included the following features. Papers were selected based on a 20-year time frame from 2003 to 2023. Only peer-reviewed articles were used in this paper. Grey literature was excluded. Mainly, journal papers were included, with the allowance of a few highly relevant conference proceeding papers. Finally, keywords were set in the protocol phase and used to screen out irrelevant documents. The specific inclusion and exclusion criteria are shown in Table 3 , and the related keywords used in the screening process are in Table 4 . The inclusion and exclusion criteria were followed strictly to meet the quality assessment goal. Quality assessments should a) explore subjective meanings relating to the experience of others, b) select papers systematically, c) provide understanding and interpretation of data, and d) findings made within papers should be supported by the data presented. During the final screening process, 20 additional papers were identified for inclusion in the review. This was done by applying the snowballing approach. Fig. 2 shows the search results and screening results for this research.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Keywords used in the screening process.

Search results and paper selection process.

3.4. Analysis and reporting results

Data was extracted using a standardised format, including research focus, link to SCQM practices, link to sustainability, and link to the quality conventions of AFNs. The extracted data was synthesised using inductive content analysis to bring forth the SCQM practices in AFNs. The data like year of publication, journal name, and author(s) were also collected. The approach draws from existing templates to ensure the results are consistently drawn forth. Such an approach can contribute to robustly understanding the material and guide the research process from a scanning stage to a more substantial stage of analysis [ 76 ]. The analysis of the results is in three parts. First, descriptive statistics show i) publication by year, ii) category of AFNs covered in the papers, and iii) top journals by the number of papers included. Second, a content analysis was adopted and used to categorise SCQM practices identified in related work. The content analysis used to code using the main food SCQM practices categories identified in related work [ 34 , 35 ]. These are supplier quality management, top management leadership and commitment, human resource management, quality of information and information system management, supply chain integration, customer focus, internal quality management, and quality control and governance. Practices found within the included sample linking to those categories were identified and placed within each practice category. The third part was to report on and discuss emerging themes.

4.1. Descriptive statistics

Fig. 3 shows the Journal Publications by Year. The keywords linked to categories of AFNs represented within the papers are presented in Fig. 4 . Local food, followed by short food supply chains, and organic food were the frequently mentioned categories throughout the papers. Some of the papers focused on more than one AFN category.

Journal Publication by year.

Publications by categories of AFNs.

The 78 articles were spread across 48 journals, and three conference papers related strongly to the current research. The top five journals where papers were used in the analysis phase are Sustainability, British Food Journal, Supply Chain Management, Journal of Rural Studies, and Food Quality and Preference, see Table 5 .

Number of publications by journal.

*IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings; Global Food Security; Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems; Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences; International Journal of Integrated Supply Management; Foods; International Journal of Supply Chain Management; Journal of Food Products Marketing; IEEE Conference; Land Use Policy; European Countryside; Concurrency Computation Practice and Experience; Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society; International Journal on Food System Dynamics; Animals; BMC Public Health; International Journal of Production Economics; World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sust. Development; Agronomy for sustainable development; Appetite; Advance Journal of Food Science and Technology; International Journal of Production Research; Agricultural Systems; Agriculture and Human Values; Agronomy; Journal of Cultural Economy; Revue de Geographie Alpine; Service Industries Journal; Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography; IOP Conference; Toxicology; IEEE International Conference on Universal Village; Chemical Engineering Transactions; Scientia Horticulturae; Journal of Enterprise Information Management; Journal of Destination Marketing & Management; Journal of Cleaner Production; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences; Procedia Computer Science, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Sustainable Cities and Society, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence; Sociologia Ruralis .

4.2. Summary of papers

Table 6 summarises the focus of the selected papers, the link to quality and sustainability, and the AFN quality conventions. The papers link to the quality conventions (bio)processes and producer, place, and production. Fig. 5 shows these links.

Overview of publications.

Overview of papers linking to the quality conventions in AFN

4.3. Supply chain quality management practices

Practices were found to arise from different areas of the supply chains, with most studies focusing on companies, multi-actors, and consumers. See Fig. 6 .

Stakeholders perspective across papers.

The SCQM practices found in the literature for AFNs are in Table 7 , including the number of papers that mention the practices. The most identifiable practices include the geographical indication of production/provenance under the supplier quality management category, followed by the quality of raw materials. Adopting digital technologies and information sharing/flow are highly identifiable in the reviewed papers for the quality of information and information system management category. Most papers mention trust between stakeholders for the supply chain integration category, followed by supply chain relationships, direct relationships, and cooperation/collaboration. Transparency is also highly identifiable, with various papers focusing on this practice. Product quality is frequently mentioned under the customer focus category throughout the included papers, while product safety and communication with customers are also important. Internal quality management focuses on traceability, production quality, and process quality. The quality control category shows quality schemes related to geographical origin (PDO/PGI) and quality management systems (i.e. ISO, GLOBALGAP, IFS, BRC, HACCP. QGAP) in a considerable number of papers. Also identifiable in multiple papers are quality control, governance, and auditing.

SCQM practices for alternative Food networks*.

5. Emerging themes

Based on the results in Tables 7 , it becomes apparent that although the SCQM practice constructs from global food systems are helpful in SCQM in AFNs, the practices have differences, reflecting the need for transparency, close relationships, trust, and geographical indications of products. Based on the literature, there is some evidence that SCQM practices can support SCQM performance in AFNs, as shown in the framework illustrated in Fig. 7 . The emerging themes are based on the relationship between SCQM practices, SCQM performance, and the link to quality conventions of AFNs, as shown in Fig. 7 .

Framework for supply chain quality management In AFNs.

5.1. Practice-based Evolution of supply chain quality management and performance

Supply chain quality management offers an ability to enhance quality performance in AFNs [ 109 ] through practices like a geographical indication of origin/provenance and governance schemes [ 104 ], supply chain collaboration and relationships [ 85 , 92 ], traceability [ 87 ], and adoption of emerging technology, i.e. blockchain [ 99 ]. Provenance includes information and the understanding of the geographical origin of a product, in addition to demonstratable transparency from the producer to the end consumer [ 153 ], thus providing better information for consumers over suppliers and their reputation. Geographical indications in food supply chains play an essential role in the governance of SCQM in AFNs and lead to higher quality performance levels [ 104 ]. Quality governance in AFNs can be supported through institutionalised schemes like PDO and PGI that set standards for processes to support higher-quality performance levels. Relationship-based governance and trust are also important for quality in AFNs [ 105 ], which may be supported by using flexible and participatory based practices [ 86 , 104 ], and the adoption of participatory guarantee systems [ 154 ]. Governance may also be enabled through supply chain integration, for example, vertical integration and moving processes backwards to suppliers or forwards towards customers [ 121 ], removing the need for intermediates. Strong relationships are required in vertical integration and its governance structure. Supply chain integration and relationships contribute to SCQM and performance in AFNs [ 92 ], for example, by supporting governance, quality integration, and ambidexterity [ 107 , 109 , 121 ]. Some barriers to supply chain integration are a lack of trust, unaligned goals between stakeholders, and loss of control [ 121 ]. Trust, personal buyer-supplier relationships, traceability, and transparency are essential to reinforce supply chain integration and relationships [ 87 , 96 ]. Human resources, continuous improvement, and top management and leadership quality were rarely shown throughout the literature as practices for SCQM in AFNs, but they may play a supporting role.

5.2. Relating SCQM practices to quality conventions in AFNs

Based on the link to producer, place, production, and link to bio (processes), a framework for linking these quality conventions of AFNs and SCQM practices is proposed. See Fig. 8 . Four quadrants are shown. The top-right quadrant is a strong link to (bio)processes and a strong link to place, production, and producer. In this quadrant, SCQM practices should emphasise traceability, governance, provenance, and transparency to control the quality of products and processes, from producer to consumer. Practices that are built around trust and supply chain relationships are in the bottom right quadrant. Supply chain relationships and trust can be strengthened through direct links between producers and consumers or disintermediation. As AFNs develop to more extended supply chain types, the adoption of emerging technology may support this. The top left quadrant represents the practices linking to (bio)processes, showing the importance of food SCQM systems and schemes. These systems might be based on structural assurances (e.g. PDO, PGI, ISO, BRC), or participatory guarantee systems. The bottom left quadrant represents a weak link to the AFN quality conventions. Although there is little to link these SCQM practices to the place, production, producer, or (bio)process, these practices may be required or can enable SCQM in AFNs. An example is the adoption of digital technologies, which could enhance traceability, governance, and support trust. The emerging framework shows promise to assess the relevance of SCQM practices in AFNs through a stakeholder perspective by ranking the relationship between SCQM practice and quality conventions, which is a consideration for future work.

Framework for linking SCQM practices to quality conventions and schemes in AFNs.

5.3. Improving the links in the quality conventions

The SCQM practices identified can reinforce the link to place, production, and producer. They reflect on the standards, norms, and values of the AFNs [ 42 ]. Provenance and geographical identification of production are essential SCQM practices to support links between consumers and upstream supply chain members (i.e. farmers) and create differentiation between chains [ 77 ]. Geographical indications and associated processes impact the quality of an end product [ 104 ], providing clear information about the producer and production practices [ 147 ]. Using geographical indication schemes can also increase the profits for producers [ 145 ], thus leading to a more fair price/value for upstream supply chain stakeholders. Setting specific outcome objectives and quality assessment criteria, adopting resource objectives towards a stable quality throughput and building the quality and coordination between actors [ 106 ].

In some AFNs, like the short food supply chain, consumer understanding of the place of production is a critical success factor [ 79 , 132 ]. Clustering/aggregating products between stakeholders is also possible as long as information on geographical aspects of production is not distorted [ 95 ]. This aggregation may lead to higher performance levels from enhanced logistic processes. In addition, quality schemes and labels (i.e. PDO, PGI) can communicate the locality of a product to the consumer and ensure processes are upheld. Supporting the work by Ref. [ 155 ] stating that consumers may need help understanding the difference between what is local and what is locality. Locality considers the geographical limits of inputs and production processes, where products can be sold at national and international levels [ 134 ]. Quality schemes often support the locality of a product [ 156 , 157 ]. Trust and direct relationships may facilitate local stakeholders more than standards and systems [ 29 ]. They may benefit from governance, assurances, and controls customised for SCQM in more localised initiatives in AFNs.

Trust is a complex notion and is an essential element of quality in AFNs, and it can reinforce consumer behaviour and confidence in food quality and safety [ 85 , 158 ]. Trust is a prerequisite for collaboration between stakeholders [ 92 ] and can contribute to the overall performance of the AFN [ 107 ]. Trust between buyers and suppliers is essential for quality management performance within food supply chains, as the erosion of trust occurs when there is a negative perception of SCQM [ 159 ]. [ 12 ] define trust concerning quality in AFNs through three key concepts: credibility, integrity, and benevolence. The researchers show that the more intense the supply chain relationship, the more focus is on benevolence, while less direct relationships lead to a need for integrity and accessibility. There is limited face-to-face interaction between the food producer and end consumer in the supply chains of global food systems. Therefore, abstract guidance schemes and institutional set quality standards support trust [ 160 ]. Within AFNs, trust in quality is more developed through personalised relationships, embedded information, and direct producer-customer interaction [ 161 , 162 ].

There is a link between trust, supply chain relationships, and quality management in food supply chains [ 57 , 163 ], with the structure and development of supply chain relationships taking a role in SCQM, particularly concerning contract stipulation [ 164 ]. In AFNs, the need for formalised contracts is sometimes replaced through trust building and long-term relationships between buyers and suppliers [ 87 ]. Relationships in the AFN are based on fairness, direct interaction, and supply chain integration [ 87 , 165 ]. Nonetheless, contracts can benefit AFNs [ 85 ] and act as a mechanism to structure transactions between supply chain stakeholders [ 166 ]. In the AFN, fairness between supply chain stakeholders is an essential consideration in building relationships [ 167 ], as a collaborative approach can be used to improve bargaining power [ 161 ], and this should be supported in formal contract agreements. Transparency enables trust in many AFNs with face-to-face interaction and direct relations [ 138 ]. However, as AFNs progress, a need for improved transparency is increasing, leading to a need for upgraded quality management through emerging digital technologies. Trust and supply chain relationships also contribute to consumer-driven product quality. Product quality in AFNs is associated with a perception of quality through taste, health attributes, and freshness [ 79 , 83 , 135 ]. Many of these elements link back to relationships and trust between buyers and suppliers, thus developing a trend for consumer-driven quality.

Traceability is a key concept in the quality management of food [ 168 ] and is an essential practice for SCQM in AFNs [ 87 , 112 ] by reinforcing consumer confidence in quality and trust [ 66 ]. The need for traceability in food supply chains is well recognised in the existing literature to support geographical indication [ 157 ], improve end-to-end monitoring of the supply chain [ 169 ], give confidence to the consumer [ 160 ], to help quality management systems and governance [ 170 ], and improve food safety [ 171 ]. AFNs enable traceability through more direct linkages and shorter supply chain constructs [ 96 ]. Consumers in AFNs demand improved levels of traceability [ 26 ] to ensure quality aspects in AFNs, for example, ethnicity, authenticity, ethnicity, and locality/localness of raw materials [ 24 , 132 ], proof of processes, origin and quality certifications, thus coming back to traceability needs [ 145 ].

SCQM practices can support a link to bioprocess (i.e. transparency, governance, standards, auditing and controls, product quality management, product safety, and traceability). Some practices, e.g. governance, extend beyond the link to place, production, producer, and link to (bio)processes. A need for governance and quality controls is important for the link to (bio)processes [ 104 ], considering the process and product quality and standards set in the AFN [ 102 , 143 ]. National and subnational quality standards have been set to support and control the product, process, and product quality in AFNs, i.e. SALSA (Safe and Local Supplier Approval) has been introduced in the United Kingdom to support SMEs that generally have difficulties meeting traditional quality management systems like BRC and IFS [ 29 ].

Participatory guarantee systems are also emerging and offer an alternative to institutionalised quality management systems [ 24 ]. The participatory guarantee system reflects on the peer-to-peer, knowledge-based governance systems defining quality practices at local levels, set outside of formally constructed structures [ 154 ]. A participatory guaranteed system offers an opportunity to act as an innovative governance structure for AFNs, with the potential of replacing institutional set systems. Important in participatory guarantee systems is that standards are clear and strict for governance and clearly define sanctions for non-compliance [ 172 ]. Participatory guarantee systems support the need for flexible quality governance between initiatives [ 86 ]. [ 129 ] examine the governance of face-to-face, proximate, and extended AFNs, suggesting that quality schemes provide guarantees for products and the qualities that those products have.

The quality management practices above linking to place, production, people, and (bio)processes can be enhanced through emerging techniques (bio-markers) and digital technologies (IoT, blockchain) [ 126 , 141 ]. For example, to enhance levels of transparency, information flow, immutability and traceability [ 99 , 124 ]. Blockchain can support practices like supply chain integration, transparency, traceability, supply chain relationships, and performance through the application, i.e. smart contracts, visibility, and non-repudiation [ 98 , 148 ]. Blockchain characteristics such as disintermediation, tamper-proof, trust-less, smart contracts, reliable and transparent information flow, immutable, and non-reputation can enhance performance in food SCQM [ 173 ]. Recent literature offers insight into how blockchain can support food SCQM, such as trust and reputation through traceability and supplier engagement, sustainability, improved monitoring and control, and provenance and authentication [ 68 ].

6. Discussion and areas of future work

6.1. discussion.

The discussion is below on three main points: i) Fit for Purpose SCQM Practices in AFNs, ii) Transferable Learning, and iii) Exploiting Advances in Digital Technologies for Improving SCQM Practices.

• i) Fit for Purpose SCQM Practices in AFNs:

Practices should be designed to support the stakeholders in AFNs and not oppose them. AFNs should implement achievable SCQM practices or those that are realistic in the supply chain. Complex and top-down SCQM practices may be challenging for AFN stakeholders to adopt, and it is essential that such practices encompass the needs of stakeholders and support performance. An important finding is a need for geographical indication related to origin and provenance. This may be supported through quality governance schemes such as PDO (product designation of origin) and PGI (product of geographical indication) [ 100 , 101 ]. Other schemes found within the study relate to organic production [ 146 ], and quality management systems (IFS, BRC, ISO, GLOBALGAP) [ 134 ]. These schemes and associated labels can reinforce stakeholders' competitiveness in global food systems. However, the schemes may play a minor role in more locally based, face-to-face, and proximate supply chains in AFNs, which rely more on trust and less on labels. These more local and short food supply chains can be supported through trust-based, flexible governance systems and transparency [ 86 ]. Participatory guarantee systems can be used in these AFNs as a substitute for structural assurances. The participatory guaranteed systems may adopt a labelling approach. However, this could lead to problems associated with traditional quality labels, such as a need for more consumer understanding [ 174 ], reflecting on the importance of maintaining local knowledge in AFNs [ 175 ]. Digital technologies could instead be used to enable the trust to govern and provide information to consumers regarding the key practices in the supply chains of AFNs [ 68 , 176 ]. The primary considerations for fit-for-purpose SCQM practices in AFNs, derived from the systematic literature review, are in Table 8 .

• ii) Transferable Learning:

Fit-for-purpose SCQM practices in AFNs.

The main SCQM practice categories in global food supply chains also widely apply to AFNs. Several differences include the merging of logistics and process quality management into internal quality management, customer service, and customer-focused relationships [ 35 , 58 , 59 ]. Trust, governance [ 177 ], and postponement [ 178 ] have yet to be recognised as main food SCQM practice categories in global food systems, but may be useful in AFNs. Human resource management, top management leadership and commitment, and continuous improvement have minor connections to AFNs. However, they may become more relevant as these supply chains develop. Some of the sub-category SCQM practices are more specific to AFNs, such as geographical indication (origin) of production/provenance and direct relationships. Other practices, for example, supply chain integration and adoption of enabling technologies, coexist with the supply chain in global food systems. The coexistence of practices offers an opportunity for transferable learning. Large food producers involved in the supply chains of globalised food systems have developed much experience in food production and are well prepared to meet downstream quality needs [ 133 ]. However, economic barriers can lead to challenges for SMEs in the AFN in meeting set standards [ 29 , 90 ].

SCQM practices could be facilitated by resource and information sharing and adopting digital technologies [ 99 , 133 ]. Product quality, product safety, process quality, and logistics quality are established in the food SCQM in mainstream supply chain networks in global food systems. Learning from these can be beneficial to AFN through SCQM practices like standardisation of production processes [ 99 ], quality monitoring [ 104 ], and setting quality criteria [ 115 ]. The quality of information and information systems are also well-developed in the supply chains of global food systems and have offerings to support those in AFNs. For example, AFNs can learn from information transparency and improve levels of traceability. These elements can support the traceability of internal and external processes and transparency for supply chain integration and internal quality management within AFNs. Also, trust has been identified as an essential factor across supply chains in global and AFNs. However, the practice of trust may not be transferable due to differences across food systems. For example, in face-to-face and proximate AFNs, localness and direct relationships are core constructs for trust in quality [ 138 , 143 , 147 ]. However, the extended AFN, where trust is established through quality schemes and labels, may learn from global food systems [ 129 ].

Review studies on SCQM practices in global food supply chains did not identify the product to meet seasonality constraints. However, this is an essential constraint for AFNs, particularly those using reduced proximity strategies, as production is limited to local conditions [ 136 , 179 ]. In addition, this study is an early identifier of provenance/geographical indication for an SCQM practice and thus may not benefit from transferable learning. Provenance/geographical indication reflects the desire of consumers in AFNs to know better the producer and origin of food [ 145 ].

• iii) Exploiting Advances in Digital Technologies for Improving SCQM Practices:

Digital technologies are emerging that can support AFNs, for example, AI (Artificial intelligence), Big Data, Blockchain technology and IoT (Internet of Things) [ 142 ]. Blockchain and IoT show more short-term potential for the supply chains of AFNs to support fresh and organic food supply chains [ 180 , 181 ] and to protect the authenticity of local foods [ 182 ]. Currently, the data required for big data technology and AI technologies may be limited in the supply chains of AFNs and may require more sophisticated food networks. Therefore, these technologies may become more relevant as AFNs mature.

[ 98 ] present a blockchain-based system to enhance traceability and quality within a local food supply chain, showing some significant benefits through trustworthy information and transparency. Within these local food systems, blockchain can enhance local embeddedness and support rural development [ 183 ]. Blockchain helps improve performance through quicker access to information for better decision-making. Blockchain is also shown in fresh food supply chains [ 99 ], which suggests a positive effect on quality, integration, supply chain collaboration, and traceability in the fresh food supply chain [ 124 ]. [ 140 ] investigate the role of blockchain in delivery and distribution management, showing promising applications such as enhanced condition tracing over the supply chain. Other blockchain applications supporting SCQM in AFNs are shown in Refs. [ 141 , 148 ], highlighting significant abilities in traceability, transparency, and governance, such as upholding quality, linking to the origin, and reducing fraud in the food supply chain. Blockchain offerings for food supply chains are promising and can further benefit through system integration with other emerging technologies [ 184 ]. A significant benefit of blockchain in food supply chains is creating more direct links between producers and buyers, thus increasing competitiveness [ 185 ]. IoT is another promising technology. For example [ 126 ], explores the use of biomarkers in the context of IoT to provide a solution to the digital-physical boundary. The research suggests that biomarkers can improve visibility in the chain and help understand the SCQM practices of upstream supply chain members (i.e. producers). IoT has also been identified to support urban agricultural chains' fresh food supply chain [ 186 ], supporting quality and safety through a data-driven system. More current application of digital technologies in AFNs is the use of e-commerce platforms to facilitate transactions directly between consumers and producers [ 187 ].

6.2. Implications for theory and practices

This research has identified the SCQM practices within AFNs. Such practices can enhance supply chain quality management in AFNs, providing insight to assess the practices further. The proposed framework offers insight into how SCQM practices and quality conventions in AFNs can be linked, emphasising the importance of traceability, governance, provenance, transparency, trust, and supply chain relationships in AFNs. Based on supply chain and performance needs, stakeholders in AFNs may tailor SCQM practices to meet set objectives. Like supply chains in global food systems, formalised contracts and traceability are necessary to ensure transparency, trust, food quality, and safety. However, the development and implementation of these practices may vary across different supply chains. Theoretical and practical implications are highlighted below.

Theoretical implications.

• 1. The SCQM practices identified for AFNs can be used as a basis for further analysis and development to advance SCQM within the networks.
• 2. The proposed framework in Fig. 8 that links the SCQM practices and the AFN quality conventions can be used to assess the relevance of SCQM practices in AFNs through a stakeholder perspective.
• 3. There is potential for innovative governance structures in AFNs to support SCQM practices.

Practical implications.

• 1. The practices identified can serve as a basis for managers to gain an understanding of how implementing their chosen practices can help to improve SCQM performance in their AFNs and create opportunities for better governance, collaboration, and trust between stakeholders.
• 2. The SCQM practices should be tailored to each quadrant of the proposed framework in Fig. 8 and the specific needs of an AFN.
• 3. There is a need for clear and strict standards for governance and sanctions for non-compliance.
• 4. Digitalisation can support SCQM practices in AFNs, and it is important to understand the stakeholder requirements when developing and implementing such systems.
• 5. Top management support is required to ensure that practices adopted by their supply chain are fit for purpose and are appropriately implemented.

Supply chains in AFNs are responding to a drive for more sustainable and high-quality food supply chains (quality turn). Collaboration and innovation are crucial to sustainability performance in supply chains [ 188 ]. To meet sustainability objectives and quality needs, AFN stakeholders should recognise and implement areas to optimise their supply chains through digital technology, supporting more efficient supply chain processes for environmental performance [ 53 ]. Geographical indication and quality assurance-related practices can act as a means to improve sustainability in AFN supply chains. However, challenging practices such as transparency, governance, and traceability must be addressed to reach desired practice performance levels. Labelling practices can support the communication of sustainability and SCQM performance but can also cause information overload [ 129 , 174 , 189 ]. Ultimately, it is essential to recognise that different supply chains in AFNs can have varying outcomes relating to sustainability: Economic, environmental, and social [ 38 ]. Linking practices to the quality conventions can guide practitioners in AFNs in aligning their SCQM practices to their sustainability-related performance objectives.

6.3. Gaps and areas for future work

Supply chain quality management practices in AFNs have received little attention, as the focus has mainly been on quality conventions. A SCQM practices approach to support AFNs may be essential to enhance performance and ensure quality is upheld in the supply chain. It remains unclear, how the food SCQM practices put forward in the literature can be adapted to leverage the performance of supply chains of AFNs. There needs to be more effort to assess SCQM practices challenges, i.e. the areas in that may significantly impact SCQM practice performance in the AFNs. Establishing a method for identifying these challenges may be beneficial as these AFNs develop. Socio-technical constructs, such as total quality management culture, governance systems, and digital technologies, have been alluded to as influencing factors in food SCQM performance and improved market performance [ 133 ]. However, the hypothesis that these constructs influence SCQM practices in AFNs and overall performance has yet to be researched and evaluated. Precisely, the areas for future work are provided in Table 9 .

Gaps and areas of future work.

Based on the research gaps and areas for future work, four main themes are identified: i) Factors contributing to practice performance, ii) Stakeholder studies on information requirements and transparency, iii) Exploring the use of digital technologies for SCQM in AFNs, and iv) Governance to support performance in the supply chains of AFNs.

7. Conclusion

This research used a systematic literature review methodology to identify supply chain quality management practices in sustainable food networks, with a focus on supply chains in alternative food networks (AFNs). The concept of quality is central to AFNs and is primarily based on norms, standards, and values that are driven by consumers. Findings of the review include that: 1) There are identifiable SCQM practices in AFNs contained in the literature, and opportunities exist in consolidating the practices through learning from established practices in supply chains of global food systems. Identified SCQM practices from the AFN literature include those associated with a) the need for provenance and geographical identification of production in supplier quality management, b) the need for supply chain relationships, c) the need for inclusion of trust, traceability, and transparency as core practices, and e) the need for governance; 2) SCQM practices can support the quality conventions of AFNs through improved links to place, producer, production, and (bio)processes; 3) The consumer is a crucial driver for quality in the AFN, thus reflecting orientations towards consumer-driven supply chain. Meeting customers' needs is critical in AFNs, and it is important for the supply chains to place increasing emphasis on appropriate fit-for-purpose downstream SCQM practices; 4) Governance is relevant for SCQM practices in AFNs and could be supported through more flexible and participatory quality systems. The use of local quality management systems is also relevant for quality governance; 5) Internal quality management practices like those associated with process and logistics quality management should be adapted to include a supply chain-inclusive strategy in order to enhance the AFN processes and traceability. Identifying practices can be beneficial to both researchers and practitioners in supply chains in sustainable food networks. The dynamics of the networks would likely require that practices need to be adapted and new ones created when necessary.

Further research is required to regularly refine, analyse, and assess the importance of SCQM practices in AFNs, especially through stakeholders' perspectives. The theoretical, review-based approach adopted for this study is a limitation. Although the literature provides insight into SCQM practices for AFNs, it still needs to be determined how the food SCQM practices put forward in the literature can be adapted to leverage those of AFNs currently used in practice. A key limitation of the systematic literature review is that although it allows the identification of practices, it needs to provide detailed insight into how those practices apply in real-world scenarios. In addition, the quality of papers included in the review is important. To validate, generalise and further develop the findings in this paper, it could be beneficial to utilise additional review methods such as meta-analysis, bibliometric analysis, and use of mixed methods. Several additional areas for future reviews were suggested, and they include in-depth reviews on the role of governance, transparency, information sharing, and digital technologies in relation to SCQM practices in sustainable food networks.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Patrick Robert Burgess: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Funlade T. Sunmola: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing. Sigrid Wertheim-Heck: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Food Supply Chain Safety Research Trends From 1997 to 2020: A Bibliometric Analysis

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Finance, School of Business, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, China.
• PMID: 35186862
• PMCID: PMC8850300
• DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.742980

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global food supply chain, strengthened consumers' awareness of the traceability system throughout the supply chain, and gradually changed consumers' consumption concepts and consumption patterns. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyse the relevant literature on food safety in the food supply chain, examine its current status, hot spots, and development trends, and provide some suggestions for academics and relevant government departments in food supply chain safety research.

Methods: We collected the literature on the food safety research of the food supply chain from the Scopus database, used BibExcel to count the subject categories, published journals, geographical distributions, research institutions, authors, and keywords in the literature, and used Pajek software to analyse the keywords in the literature, perform co-occurrence analysis, draw related knowledge maps, and perform cluster analysis on primary keywords. Finally, to study the development trend, we used CorTexT software to illustrate the theme evolution path map in this research field.

Results: The keyword visualization network revealed the following key research topics: (1) food safety at the consumer end of the food supply chain, (2) food safety management in the food supply chain, (3) risk management of food safety in the food safety chain, and (4) food safety at the production end of the food supply chain.

Conclusions: After comprehensive discussion and analysis, we concluded that food supply chain management may be a hot topic in the future, especially in traceability management combined with the blockchain. It is necessary to explore in-depth how the blockchain can affect the food supply chain to provide a theoretical basis for managing the latter.

Keywords: bibliometrics; food safety; food supply chain; pandemic; traceability.

Copyright © 2022 Luo, Leng and Bai.

Publication types

• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
• Bibliometrics
• Food Supply

Blockchain Technology and Advancements in the Agri-food Industry

• Published: 16 April 2024

Cite this article

• Thirukumaran R 1 ,
• Vijay Kumar Anu Priya 1 ,
• Vijayakumar Raja 1 , 2 ,
• Shubham Nimbkar 1 ,
• J. A. Moses 1 &
• C. Anandharamakrishnan 1 , 2  

The purpose of this article is to present the fundamental concepts, features, advantages, limitations, and possible applications in the agri-food supply chain. Blockchain technology helps in minimizing transaction costs and time, boosting process efficiency, and safety, including transparency, and increasing stakeholder confidence.

Several scientific databases were searched with specific keywords and relevant research and review articles were collected and reported.

Maintaining data immutably and facilitating speedy monitoring through all phases of the food supply chain, blockchain increases transparency across all levels of the agri-food sector. Though the potential of the technology is proven, the implementation faces some challenges that require to be explored further with various conceptual frameworks developed for that purpose.

This review explores the potential, features, and applications of blockchain technology to enable the flexible agri-food supply chain, various conceptual frameworks developed to achieve a traceable food supply chain, and barriers associated with the implementation of the technology.

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R, T., Priya, V.K.A., Raja, V. et al. Blockchain Technology and Advancements in the Agri-food Industry. J. Biosyst. Eng. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42853-024-00221-4

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Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program

Food hubs & values-based supply chains.

In the last decade, food hubs have firmly established their significance within the landscape of regional food systems. Defined by the USDA as “a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand” 1  , food hubs are important sales channels for many small to medium-scale farmers, offering transportation efficiency and greater access to markets.

California Food Hub Network

In 2015, UC SAREP launched the California Food Hub Network, a learning network to coordinate technical assistance, collaborative learning and information sharing for and among food hubs in California. Activities include in person convenings, networking events between food hubs and potential buyers, food hub tours, and technical assistance on a diverse range of topics related to food hub operations.

Why a food hub network?

As values-based aggregators/distributors, food hubs face unique business and operational challenges within a highly competitive sales space.

Over the past several years, regional alliances or networks among food hubs have emerged across the U.S. to address shared challenges or develop mutually beneficial opportunities. These networks range from formal alliances characterized by transactional relationships or equipment sharing to informal, learning networks centered around technical assistance and information sharing.

In its present iteration, the CA Food Hub Network exists on the informal end of the spectrum. Our activities are informed by a spirit of collaboration and advancing the shared goal of a sustainable food system in California.

Significance of Food Hubs in Regional Food Systems

Food hubs are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between farms in the local marketplace, which tend to be smaller with less product volume and less logistical capacity, and institutions, which require greater product volume, consistency and delivery capabilities. According to the USDA’s Regional Food Hub Resource Guide, “food hubs are key mechanisms for creating large, consistent, reliable supplies of mostly locally or regionally produced foods” offering transportation efficiency and greater access to wholesale markets. 1

Over the past decade, the number of food hubs in the United States has been on the rise. Between 2007 and 2014, regional food hubs grew in number by 288% 2  . In 2017, there were nearly 400 food hubs identified in the United States 3  . The 2017 National Food Hub Survey found that food hubs result in local jobs, create linkages between businesses and provide a stable sales channel for beginning, small and mid-size farmers 4  .

According to outreach conducted by UC SAREP, in 2017 California was home to approximately 20 food hubs, ranging in size, geographic scope, and type of business model. While some of these hubs are quite small, with gross annual sales under $500,000, on average food hubs in California reported increasing sales, indicating a positive growth trend. 5

Other Resources for Food Hubs

Resources from uc sarep.

An Annotated Bibliography of Publications and Resources on Food Hubs and Values-Based Supply Chains

A literature review synthesizing recent reports, analyses, and how-to manuals and practical case studies geared towards practitioners developing food hubs, values-based supply chains and similar marketing channels.  

A Review of Scholarly Literature on Values-Based Supply Chains

A synthesis of existing research and scholarship on values-based supply chains in the United States.

Food Hubs and Values Based Supply Chains: A Toolkit for California Farmers and Ranchers

This report describes the variety of new values-based supply chains and food hubs in California and helps farmers and ranchers better understand the benefits and constraints of these new marketing opportunities so they can decide if and how they should participate. We provide an overview of benefits and considerations for producers participating in different types of enterprises. We also suggest some questions a producer might want to ask before participating in a particular enterprise. We hope that this effort will shed some light on the growing world of values-based supply chain enterprises so that farmers, ranchers, and consumers can all benefit.

Developing Values-Based Distribution Networks to Enhance the Prosperity of Small and Medium Sized Producers: California Case Studies

Summary and Key Findings

This document summarizes key findings from our values-based supply chain case studies. This project examines the financial, government regulations, industry business practices and entrepreneurial factors that influence the development of emerging distribution networks embedded in values-based supply chains.

Developing Values-Based Distribution Networks to Enhance the Prosperity of Small and Medium Sized Producers

This project examines the financial, policy and entrepreneurial factors that influence the development of emerging distribution networks embedded in food-based value chains. Such networks can enhance the sustainability of small- and medium-scale producers, in the broadest sense, by addressing their environmental, economic and social concerns through a focus on cooperation, to gain economies of scale in marketing services, efficiencies in common distribution activities and building food system communities.

An Annotated Bibliography of Publications and Resources on Food Hubs and Values-Based Supply Chains   With the generous support from USDA Rural Development, SAREP has compiled an extensive annotated bibliography   on food hubs and values-based supply chains.  The bibliography includes academic literature, reports and publications from non-profits and research firms, and articles in USDA publications and trade journals.  This resource is part of an ongoing SAREP project, also funded by USDA Rural Development, to provide tools and resources to California farmers and ranchers on this new and emerging field of values-based aggregation and distribution. 

Lessons Learned from a California Food Hub Network Pilot Final report from a UC-funded project to convene a learning network for California food hubs.

Commission starts setting up the Agriculture and Food Chain Observatory

The European Commission has launched the call for applications to set up the EU agri-food chain Observatory (AFCO). The creation of this Observatory that will look at production costs, margins and trading practices was announced mid-March as one of the measures to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain and reinforce the trust between all actors throughout the chain.

Its objective is to bring increased transparency on prices, structure of costs and distribution of margins and added value in the supply chain , while respecting confidentiality and competition rules. Building trust between all stakeholders and public authorities is essential to ensure all actors are fairly remunerated for their contributions and work in the agri food supply chain.

The Observatory will gather up to 80 members , representing national authorities in charge of agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture or the food supply chain, as well as organisations representing stakeholders active in various stages of the chain - from farmers, input providers, food industry, traders, to transport, logistics, retail and consumers. In the medium term, it is expected that the work of the Observatory will allow to develop methodologies to assess and monitor the structure of costs and the distribution of margins and value added along the food supply chain . The existing agri-food data portal will be expanded to publish new relevant indicators, available to all online. This could include data on costs and margins at the different stages of the food chain. This new observatory will complement the work of the existing market observatories for agriculture and fisheries .

Members will also exchange information about trading practices affecting positively or negatively the smooth functioning of the supply chain. Case studies for certain products or sectors could also be shared.

The call for applications is open until 13 May. Organisations who apply must be registered in the Transparency Register to be appointed. The Observatory is expected to hold its first meeting in July 2024, chaired by the Directorate General of Agriculture of the European Commission. The Observatory will meet at least twice per year in plenary, with additional ad hoc meetings on specific topics to be organised too, if need be. In line with its transparency principles, all relevant documents (including the agenda and the minutes) will be published on the Register of expert groups. The Observatory is established for an initial duration of five years, renewable.

Reinforcing the position of farmers in the food supply chain is one of the key objectives of the CAP. There are already several measures in place at EU level to ensure more fairness and protect farmers against unfair trading practices. While the degree of trust and cooperation between actors in the chain is increasing, the full implementation and enforcement of the available policy tools take time, and more needs to be done. This is why the Commission presented to the Council and the European Parliament in March several options for actions that could be taken forward in the short and medium term. The proposal to set up an Observatory on production costs, margins and trading practices was warmly welcomed by agriculture ministers in the Council meeting of 26 March 2024. Heads of State also called on the Commission to keep up the work to strengthen the position of farmers in the food supply chain in the latest European Council meeting.

For more information

Call to apply for the EU agri-food chain Observatory

Commission proposes targeted review of Common Agricultural Policy to support EU farmers

Information on the agri-food supply chain and existing measures

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April 17, 2024 International supply chain’s double edge

The U.S. middle market continues to increase revenue through purchasing and selling products and goods in the international supply chains that connect all corners of the world.

A new research report, released today by the National Center for the Middle Market ( NCMM ) in collaboration with the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at The Ohio State University Max M. Fisher College of Business, reveals that middle market companies of all sizes and industry segments are firmly established in global markets as purchasers or sellers.

Of the 406 middle market supply chain leaders who responded to the report’s survey, 60% indicated revenue growth as the top advantage for international sellers, while 72% of purchasers surveyed cited cost savings as the top benefit for engaging in international supply chains.  

Expansion by mid-size companies into international supply chains is also common, according to the research. In 2023, one out of every five middle market companies expanded into new international markets. That number is expected to grow in 2024, with 45% of sellers indicating they are looking to expand their international supply chain presence, while 37% of purchasers look to do the same.

“This research offers a unique look at an important segment of middle market business,” said Doug Farren, managing director of the NCMM. “While many enterprise organizations participate internationally and often times have well-defined processes, teams and partnerships, we wanted to explore the latest trends and implications for mid-size companies that sell products outside the U.S. as well as source raw materials and supplies from partners in other countries.”

Explore the report

While middle market businesses that have international supply chains are largely satisfied with their experiences and acknowledge the importance of diversification, business beyond domestic borders is not without challenges and risk. While 37% of responding purchasers cited longer lead times as their top challenge, sellers cited quality control as their primary hurdle within their international supply chains.

Risk mitigation for international supply chains also remains a top priority for these middle market companies ― 47% of sellers cited insurance as their primary action for mitigating risk, while 40% of purchasers cited a diversified supplier base as their go-to tactic. Regardless of whether these mid-size companies purchased or sold products internationally, purchasers and sellers each felt that supply chain disruptions were minor (74% and 80%, respectively) and felt overwhelmingly confident in their international supply chains (77% and 89%, respectively). 

Another challenge revealed by the research is the struggle to hire domestic employees with international supply chain expertise. Mid-size companies that purchase or sell internationally have a clear need for domestic employees with international supply chain experience, with language proficiency cited as being particularly critical, along with international awareness and cultural competence.

“What was particularly interesting about the research was just how much work was needed to ensure middle market companies are fully invested in creating and sustaining a global supply chain,” said Michael Knemeyer, a professor of logistics at Fisher and co-author of the report. “Success means dedicating human capital, trained with language and cross-cultural competencies, to ensure these international networks are operating at capacity.” 

The joint research report highlights the important role that Fisher’s CIBER has in international business and education. Administered by the U.S. Department of Education, CIBER grants provide universities across the country with valuable resources to increase and promote the nation’s capacity for international understanding and competitiveness. 

“We were proud to collaborate with NCMM on this very important exploration of global supply chain,” said Dominic DiCamillo, executive director of Fisher’s Office of Global Business, which houses its CIBER. “When we talk about the power of partnerships and driving real impact and understanding of today’s international business environment, it’s projects like this one that highlight the unique role that the NCMM, Fisher and CIBER can have when working together.”

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