Blueberry Supply Chain in Italy: Management, Innovation and Sustainability

Abstract

Abstract:The growing trend market of fresh products is driven by a consumer oriented to new lifestyles and environmental issues. The berries market in Europe represents a good example of a consumer driven supply chain, due to the capacity to answer all the sequences of the system. To explore the process developed by fruit growers' associated groups in Italy, the research is organized into four stages. The first stage provides a review of the organization of the fresh fruit supply chain (FFSC) and the need to innovate it in light of the driven demand. The second section focuses on the innovation displayed towards storing, managing and maintaining the quality of fruit during the supply. The third section considers the case study. The manuscript concludes by summarising the main results and discussing the implications for future research. The use of a modified active packaging system (MAP) with "green" films has enabled the maintenance of the quality of the fruits for two months, as well as the presence of the company blueberries market for longer periods, and has finally led to improving the exports, thus reaching new European countries, increasing the turnover of the associated group and better remuneration for the fruit growers as a consequence.

Consumer behaviour in the prediction of postharvest losses reduction for fresh strawberries packed in modified atmosphere packaging

“…Figure 5 illustrates that use of MAP reduces losses from 9 % to 8 % (hyp 1), but if the consumers keep the fruit in sealed packages, the loss is reduced to 6 % (hyp 2). This result confirms the benefit of MAP to reduce post-harvest losses (Aday and Caner, 2013;Almenar et al, 2007;Giuggioli et al, 2015;Peano et al, 2017) while quantifying this benefit for the first time. However, benefits are reduced if consumers open the packaging and lose the benefit of MAs.…”

“…Packaging, was recently identified as an essential element to address the key challenge of sustainable food consumption and as a pillar of the reduction of food losses (Angellier-Coussy et al, 2013;Licciardello, 2017). Among packaging technologies, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) can maintain storage life of products, and thus contribute to loss reductions (Belay et al, 2016;Chaix et al, 2015;Falagán and Terry, 2018;Peano et al, 2017). The MA is created by the fresh fruit or vegetables (FFV) after packing due to product respiration and permeation through the film.…”

Comparison of Regular Atmospheric Storage versus Modified Atmospheric Packaging on Postharvest Quality of Organically Grown Lowbush and Half-Highbush Blueberries

“…In our study, the half-highbush blueberry ('Northblue') had a longer postharvest life compared to the lowbush blueberry in the LDPE film, which refers to the genetic difference of these two taxa and may suggest that the suitability of the film is species-specific. Peano et al [24] described that increasing the quantities of CO 2 within the high-density polyethylene pallet and decreasing the quantities of O 2 so as to reach values in a range of 10-12% for both gases made it possible to induce a slowdown of the respiratory metabolism of the fruits, which increased the conservation period up to 45 days. In the mentioned study, the blueberries were kept for another 15 days under in RA conditions, achieving an overall period of conservation of 60 days.…”

Sustainable Supply Chain and Innovation: A Review of the Recent Literature

“…Life Cycle Thinking A technique to assess environmental impacts in the whole supply chain [62,76,92,100,101,128,129,140,142,147,158] Monte Carlo Method A Computation intensive forecasting technique used to estimate costs associated with utilizing the available woody biomass for energetic use. [126] MCDA-Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis…”