Sustainability assessment in the food supply chain: study of a certified product in Italy

Abstract

The assessment of sustainability practices in the supply chain involves not only defining the measures or indicators, but also implementing, using and updating them according to driving elements that motivate companies to opt for sustainability. The aims in this study are to investigate if, how and why firms in different stages of the food supply chain assess their sustainability, and the alignment of the supply chain sustainability (SCS) assessment with the SCS practices and drivers. This paper studies the case of Grana Padano cheese, one of the major Italian PDO (protected designation of origin) products. The case comprises eight companies in the main three supply chain stages; plus, the Consortium that manages the PDO label. The Grana Padano supply chain opts mainly for a loose-coupled approach in their SCS performance management. The study contributes to the SCS literature by providing a typology of assessment approaches, in terms of alignment among drivers, practices and measures, and provides insights for understanding the reasons why companies adopt a certain approach.

Keywords:

• Sustainability assessment
• sustainability practices
• sustainability drivers
• food supply chain
• PDO product
• certified product

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Verónica León-Bravo

Verónica León-Bravo, Assistant Professor at the School of Management in Politecnico di Milano. Former lecturer at Universidad de Las Americas (Ecuador). Got her PhD at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering in Politecnico di Milano. She holds a MSc degree from Ecole des Mines de Nantes (France) in Management of Logistics and Production Systems, and a BSc degree from Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) in Industrial Engineering. She has taught in the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Ecuador and in Italy and participated in diverse research projects. Her research work has been published in several Supply Chain Management and Sustainability related journals.

Federico Caniato

Federico Caniato, Full Professor at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, and Director of the Master in Supply Chain and Purchasing Management. His research interests are in the fields of Supply Chain and Purchasing Management, in the last years he has focussed on Sustainability and Supply Chain Finance. He has coordinated and participated to international research projects such as the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) and the International Purchasing Survey (IPS). He authored several international publications on various Operations and Supply Chain Management journals.

Maria Caridi

Maria Caridi, Visiting Professor at University of Cincinaati, College of Business. Associate Professor at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering in Politecnico di Milano. She teaches e-Operations, Production Logistics, Information Analysis for Supply Chains. Her research interests are in the fields of Supply Chain, Production and Logistics, Industrial plants management and, Supply chain information systems. She authored several international publications on various Operations Management journals as the International Journal of Production Economics, Production Planning and Control, International Journal of Production Research and various others.