Sustainable Configuration of the Tunisian Olive Oil Supply Chain Using a Fuzzy TOPSIS-Based Approach

Ahlem Jellali, Wafik Hachicha and Awad M. Aljuaid
Additional contact information
Ahlem Jellali: OLID Research Unit, Faculty of Economics and Management of Sfax, University of Sfax, Airport Road Km 4, Sfax 3018, Tunisia
Awad M. Aljuaid: Department of Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: Agricultural production of olive oil is a sector with high significance. The olive sector is a very important sector for several countries in the world, in particular, for Tunisia. In addition, the impacts of olive oil production and extraction on economic, environmental, and social issues are considerable. The main objective of this work is to propose a better configuration of the Tunisian olive oil supply chain (OOSC) from a sustainable development (SD) perspective. The proposed approach consists of applying a fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method as a multi-criteria approach. The proposed approach is applied twice. In the first application, the objective is to compare five possible scenarios for the olive agricultural phase. In the second application, the objective is to compare three possible scenarios for the olive oil transformation phase. The major findings of this research include the following: (1) The best scenario for the agricultural phase is the intensified organic system, which is based on biodynamic olive growing. (2) The best scenario for the transformation phase (oil extraction) is the continuous two-phase extraction system. Consequently, the efficient way for the by-products processing phase is the use of wet pomace for the preparation of biodynamic compost.

Keywords: sustainable development; olive oil supply chain; performance evaluation; multi-criteria decision analysis; fuzzy TOPSIS; agricultural phase; transformation phase; by-products processing phase (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/722/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/2/722/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:722-:d:479690

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().