Management of Postharvest Losses and Wastages in the Indian Tomato Supply Chain—A Temperature-Controlled Storage Perspective

Aishwarya Mohan, Ramesh Krishnan (), Kaur Arshinder, John Vandore and Usha Ramanathan
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Aishwarya Mohan: Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
Ramesh Krishnan: Quantitative Methods and Operations Management Area, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, Kozhikode 673570, India
Kaur Arshinder: Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
John Vandore: Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Harwell, Didcot OX11 0GD, UK
Usha Ramanathan: Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham NG1 4FQ, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: Tomatoes are an extensively cultivated and consumed horticulture product in India. Horticulture produce undergoes a series of operations such as harvesting, storage, packaging, loading, unloading, and transportation before reaching the end customer in the food supply chain (FSC). Any inefficiencies in these operations cause postharvest losses (PHL) and affect the whole FSC. However, the focus of existing studies has been more on improving productivity than addressing PHL. Several technologies, such as cold storage and evaporative cooling, are available to address PHL, but hardly any technology has been implemented in the Indian FSC. Hence, studies need to identify technology adoption barriers and perform a feasibility analysis of the available technologies. This study addresses this gap by first identifying the cause and effect of PHL in the Indian tomato FSC, exploring different technologies to address the PHL and challenges in implementing those technologies, and finally proposing a feasible option to manage PHL. The case study approach was followed for the collection of relevant data. The findings show several reasons for PHL across the stages of the FSC, including reduced shelf life due to improper storage and long-distance transport. Based on the analysis of the available technologies, temperature-controlled storage facilities and collaboration among FSC partners are suggested as the best possible solutions to address the problem of PHL.

Keywords: food supply chain; postharvest losses; food waste; cold storage; temperature-controlled storage systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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