Logistics Management Strategies to Improve Food Safety of Fresh Fruits at Retail Outlets: The Case of Year-Round Sourcing of Strawberries.

The quality of most fresh products deteriorates as a function of environmental conditions and time, resulting in reduced market value and ultimately in product waste. Although product spoilage significantly impacts the performance of perishable supply chains often supply chain design strategies do not sufficiently account for the perishable product nature. One such strategy is dual sourcing, a common practice adopted in supply chain management to enhance sourcing flexibility while reducing transportation costs. In this paper we examine the use of a common dual sourcing strategy, the dual-index policy, in an international strawberry supply chain. We propose to incorporate costs for expected losses of product quality in dual-index order policy parameters. Costs for product quality decay are determined using expected shelf life reductions during transport and storage steps in the supply chain, predicted using microbiological growth models of a spoilage driver. The performance of the different dual-index strategies is assessed using a discrete event chain simulation model that includes continuous quality decay. The scenario analysis of this strawberry supply chain revealed that standard dual-index sourcing policies are ineffective in delivering a sufficient product quality with reasonable waste, resulting in large amounts of product waste. Furthermore findings indicate that use of product quality information in dual-index sourcing policies significantly improves chain performance