Sustainability concerns are receiving increasingly attention by society and in turn, the food sector and consumers as the food sector’s final customers. Investments towards improvements in sustainability along the chain are usually not evenly distributed along the chain which affects the...

This paper addresses the complex production planning and control (PPC) challenges in food supply chains. The study illustrates how food producers' traditional make‐to‐stock (MTS) approach is not well suited to meet the trends of increasing product variety, higher demand uncertainty,...

Due to the nature of the food supply chain, an increase of the integration's degree in the chain may be an important aspect in the context of increasing the efficiency of agri-food companies. Therefore, exploring the relationships among these variables was found as an important research area and...

The intense process of internationalization of the food market is giving rise to new competitive scenarios. Growing market shares on the part of new export countries, along with other consumer and retail issues, impose different marketing policies for agri-food products. In particular, greater...

The European project NetGrow stands for Enhancing the innovativeness of food SMEs through the management of strategic network behavior and network learning performance. It is a FP7 Cooperation project in the theme Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology with an EC contribution of 3M...

The present study contributes to identifying obstacles to the development of a local biodiesel agro-industrial system (AGS) in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The research questions are: “How do local social characteristics influence the organizational effectiveness of agents involved in...

The driver for this paper is the need to better understand the potential for learning and innovation that networks can provide especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which comprise by far the majority of enterprises in the food sector. With the challenges the food sector is...

In recent decades the northwestern part of Germany (Weser-Ems region) has come to focus on intensive pork production. This has led to public outrage about the disposal of biological waste, farmers’ complaints about the high cost of leasing land, soaring risks of animal diseases, and the...

Western-European consumers have become not only more demanding on product availability in retail outlets but also on other food attributes such as quality, integrity, and safety. When (re)designing food supply-chain networks, from a logistics point of view, one has to consider these demands next...