Sustainable Supply Chain Management practices in food industry: professionals’ perspective

This paper discusses the impact of sustainable practices in food supply chains. Practices are identified from the literature and their implementation maturity level by companies is assessed. Through a systematic literature review, current best sustainable practices about supply chain management in the food industry are identified. Then, a questionnaire survey is administered to professionals, and the results are quantitatively analysed using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Twenty-five best sustainable supply chain management practices are considered. Among these, some practices appear to be well established on both the academic and industrial sides, such as sustainable supplier management practices. On the contrary, other practices widely discussed in the literature, such as green shipping and distribution, or collaborative practices are still rarely adopted. Moreover, some practices appear to have a direct influence on the economic, environmental, and social dimensions a business should be accountable for. This work includes the point of view of professionals that are increasingly dealing with the sustainability issue.