SUSTAINABLE FRESH FOOD COLD SUPPLY CHAIN (CSC)

Since sustainable fresh food cold supply chain (CSC) has notable advantages in improving the triple-bottom-line (TBL) performance, in recent years, practitioners and scholars worldwide have aroused the interest to explore more insights. In parallel, the sustainability performance of a corporate in terms of social welfare, economic benefits, and environmental impacts is a problem increasingly concerning among customers, companies, and governments. This focus on these topics has contributed to a field of research frequently considered to implement good practices to improve sustainability performance, especially in developed countries with more experience exploring and implementing good practices to improve sustainability performance. Many scholars have recognized the enormity of fresh food waste and limited implementation of good practices in fresh food CSC in developing countries compared to developed countries. They believe that a possible solution is for companies in developing countries to learn from companies in developed countries that have extensive experience in implementing good practice to promote sustainable fresh food CSC. However, few efforts have been made to investigate the reasons for the limited implementation of good practices in fresh food CSC applied by developed countries in developing countries. The purpose of this study emerged from this idea, which is to analyze the reasons for implementing good practices and the relationship between the good practices and sustainability performance with a strong empirical focus. This study was conducted in three main phases: a relevant literature review as an exploration phase, a multiple case study analysis in four retail companies to empirically analyze the aforementioned reasons, and a fuzzy multi-criteria approach to empirically analyze the relationships between the good practices and sustainability performance. Onsite data were collected from companies and field experts, including archival data and developing semi-structured interviews. In addition, a cross-case analysis was conducted to map the possible reasons for implementing good practices, and a fuzzy multi-criteria approach was used to analyze the impact of good practices on sustainability performance. The results of this thesis from the multiple case study highlights the importance of the current level of government regulation, customer sustainability awareness, dependence between buyers and suppliers, top management, and laws/policies that support the implementation of good practices. Moreover, the results from the fuzzy multi-criteria approach indicate that China values economic performance more, while good practice of “employee training” is the best sustainable practice for improving the sustainability performance of fresh food CSC. These findings are consistent with the preliminary evidence gained in the literature review analysis carried out in this thesis and thus provide robustness to the conclusions drawn. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the phenomenon, revealing new evidence that is particularly useful for practitioners, academics, and governments who are facing the challenges of researching, implementing, and regulating good practices, while not omitting sustainability performance goals and sharing efforts as much as possible.