Waste reduction in the supply chain of arable vegetables
R.L.M. van Uffelen, G.M. Splinter, O. van Kooten, N. Botden
ISHS Acta Horticulturae 655:283-289
2004
บทคัดย่อ
Over the years a Dutch vegetable chain with preferred suppliers has improved its efficiency in tuning demand with supply. Because of working with fresh produce, waste product occurs in the different links. The wholesaler estimates that 5 to 10% of the total production, never reaches the end customer. Reduction of the amount of waste product would improve the profit as well as the environment. In this research the supply chain has been studied to establish where and how waste product occurs. Furthermore a study has been carried out for finding solutions for 1. reducing the amount of waste product, and 2. for value improvement of waste product. The bottlenecks are at the entrance and outlet of the chain. Improving the value of waste at the outlet makes is not easy. At the entrance of the chain the occurrence of waste downstream the supply chain is unpredictable, which makes it hard to find customers for the waste product. At the outlet high costs would have to be made for poor quality waste. So, the first priority would be minimising the flow of waste product. This can be achieved by an earlier and more precise prediction of harvested amounts by the growers and of the demanded amount of product by the retailer. For these purposes existing instruments should be applied and adjusted for this chain. Working in this way, it will give the wholesaler more time to match demand with supply and to find customers for processing the waste product.