Improving food supply chain management by a sustainable approach to supplier evaluation

Abstract

Increasing food supply chain sustainability means having to deal with many conflicting aspects and involves producers, several departments in distribution companies, and consumers. The objectives of this research are to develop models to solve real-world supplier evaluation problems and validate them with real data on fresh fruits in a supermarket chain. Literature review and results from a survey with managers from purchasing, logistics, and quality departments of a food distribution company are used to establish criteria, to first model the assessment of products and, second, to model supplier evaluation. A multicriteria hybrid approach is proposed, using multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) to assess the quality of products and Preference Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) to complete their evaluation with strategic criteria to be included in the second phase. The results allow companies to rank suppliers by product and classify them according to the main criteria categories, such as product strategy, food safety, economic, logistic, commercial, green image and corporate social responsibility. A sorting approach is also applied to obtain ordered groups of suppliers. Finally, the models proposed can form the core of a decision support system in order to create and monitor the supplier base in food distribution companies, as well as to inform sustainable decision making.