Sustainability implementation challenges in food supply chains: a case of UK artisan cheese producers

Abstract

Food supply chains are receiving increased attention due to rapid depletion of natural resources, increasing quality standards and rising food safety and security concerns. Implementing sustainability practices in food supply chains is believed to overcome such emerging challenges. However, limited studies address sustainability implementation concerns, particularly in cold food supply chains. Thus, this study attempts to identify factors hindering sustainability implementation in cold food chain networks by considering a case of UK artisan cheese producers. Survey data is utilised to identify and prioritise barriers for implementing sustainability following fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and sensitivity analysis. The analysis identified several key barriers, including initial investment cost, firm size and unawareness of government regulations. The internal barriers significantly dominate the implementation of sustainability practices in comparison to external barriers. Lack of consensus regarding the concept of sustainability by different stakeholders is observed to be an issue negatively affecting the level of integration in SMEs. Findings will help food and dairy SME's in gaining competitive advantage through the successful implementation of sustainability practices.

Keywords:

• Sustainability
• food supply chains
• UK dairy sector
• sustainability implementation
• SMEs
• cold food chains

Acknowledgements

Authors would like to thank two reviewers and guest editor for their constructive recommendations for improving the quality of manuscript. Authors acknowledge the support of Mr Meletios Bimpizas-Pinis from Heriot Watt University, UK for preliminary data collection and modelling activity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abhijeet Ghadge

Dr Abhijeet Ghadge is a Senior Lecturer in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK. He holds PhD in Operations and Supply Chain Management from Loughborough University, UK, and MTech in Industrial Engineering and Management from Indian Institute of Technology, India. He has over 13 years of industrial, academic and consulting experience working with a wide range of UK, European and Asian organizations. Dr Ghadge has published widely in leading operations, logistics and supply chain management journals. He follows practice-driven approach to problems across the broad domains of supply chain risk, sustainability and Industry 4.0.

Merve Er Kara

Dr Merve Er Kara is an Assistant Professor in the department of Industrial Engineering at Marmara University, Turkey. She holds BS, MS and PhD degrees in Industrial Engineering. She completed one-year Postdoc at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK in 2019. Post-doctoral project was supported by the international post-doctoral research scholarship program of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Her main research interests include supply chain risk, simulation/modeling, data mining and ant colony optimization. She has published her work in international journals, conference papers and book chapters. She has also participated in few research projects in Turkey.

D. G. Mogale

Dr D. G. Mogale is a Lecturer in Logistics and Operations Management at Cardiff Business School, UK. He completed his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. Before joining Cardiff Business School, he was affiliated with Cranfield School of Management, UK as a Visiting Researcher. His research interests include supply chain network modelling and optimisation, operations research applications in logistics systems, sustainability and food supply chains. In past, he has worked on a few projects funded by European Union, Swiss Government and the Indian Government as a Research Assistant. He has published several papers in leading operations and logistics management journals.

Sonal Choudhary

Dr Sonal Choudhary is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Management at the management school, University of Sheffield, UK. She specialises in sustainable operations and supply chain management research along with technological adoptions for enhancing the resilience and sustainability of food systems. She investigates how different types of interventions from multidiscipline and multi-stakeholders can help in designing a sustainable and circular agri-food value chain. She holds a PhD in Environmental Sustainability from the University of Sheffield and has double masters with Gold medal in Environmental Science. She has published her work in several leading management journals. She has led, worked and reviewed numerous projects funded by STFC, ESRC, European Commission (FP7 & H2020), Marie Curie, British Academy, Newton Fund and HEFCE.

Samir Dani

Prof Samir Dani is a Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management in Huddersfield Business School at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Professor Dani engages widely with industry and has research interests in supply chain risks, sustainability in supply chains, and the use of technology and business models. He is currently conducting research in the use of AI techniques within supply chain decision making and the use of Blockchain technology in supply chains. He has published widely and has presented his research to both academic and practitioner audiences.