A Systematic Review of Sustainable Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Supply Chains

Abstract

Fresh fruit and vegetables are crucial for human health. Their fibrous structure and high nutritional value are essential for people’s well-being. This study aims to provide a review of the current state of knowledge and practices regarding fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains (FFVSC). The reviewed papers are divided into categories according to their findings, research purposes, tools and messages used. Our objective is to guide both academics and practitioners by pointing out significant streams of research with respect to these categories. For a better understanding, these subgroups are essentially based on their common research purpose, and the tools and methods they adopted are explained. Therefore, this study sheds light on research related to FFVSCs for those who are new to this area or planning to conduct in-depth research on directions suggested by studies in this area. The related literature was classified into eight categories: namely, (1) value chain indicators of FFVSCs, (2) food-related problems/postharvest losses along FFVSCs, (3) roles of parties involved in the FFV value chain, (4) review papers, (5) technological trends in FFVSCs, (6) packaging issues of FFVSCs, (7) logistics solutions of FFVSCs, and (8) sustainable FFVSCs. Details on the tools and methods employed in these studies are summarized in Appendix B. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the related literature lacks a comprehensive review that investigates different aspects of FFVVCs in detail. Thus, this study contributes towards a better understanding of the related literature and can be used as a guide for future studies.

Does green vertical farming offer a sustainable alternative to conventional methods of production?: A case study from Scotland

“…Though a greater decline was seen in transport from Spain (approximately 5%), as an absolute decline in nutrient content, all instances are low. This is likely a consequence of the use of cold supply chains for fresh produce transportation (Tort et al, 2022).…”

A closer look at farmers’ participation in the supermarket supply chain using bibliometric and content analyses

“…Another study conducted in 2022 explored this research stream and found eight clusters of the field in science mappingvalue chain indicators of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, food-related problems/postharvest losses along fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, roles of parties involved in the fresh fruit and vegetable value chain, review papers, technological trends in fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, packaging issues of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, logistics solutions of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, and sustainable fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains (Tort et al, 2022). Although this review was a comprehensive and integrative attempt to review the existing research, due to its product-specific nature, the ecological validity of the paper is limited and there is a need to address this issue with a study that can provide an overall mapping and overview of the field.…”

“…Another study conducted in 2022 explored this research stream and found eight clusters of the field in science mapping – value chain indicators of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, food-related problems/postharvest losses along fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, roles of parties involved in the fresh fruit and vegetable value chain, review papers, technological trends in fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, packaging issues of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, logistics solutions of fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains, and sustainable fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains (Tort et al. , 2022).…”

Decentralized governance and artificial intelligence policy with blockchain-based voting in federated learning

“…The sensors detect the fruit maturity loss (Baietto and Wilson, 2015 ) using the “Export Progress” information, and the export progress loss is then estimated. Hence, the industry should stimulate advanced management ideas on strategy simulation and recoup a part of the sensor cost while increasing fruit quality (Tort et al, 2022 ). Using the “maturity” information, a mango ripeness data feed is essential to train a self-supervised deep learning model to predict shelf-life (Nordey et al, 2019 ).…”