The Green Food Supply Chain Concept

Abstract

The traditional food supply chain is a complex network of interconnected entities whose function is to supply consumers with enough health-safe products, i.e. enough food with optimization of production and distribution. In the previous period, the traditional supply chain has faced numerous challenges and problems. Globalization, climate change, changes in living standards and consumer preferences, limited natural resources (agricultural land and water), growth in the amount of food and packaging waste, as well as food insecurity led to creation of numerous national and international regulations and agendas related to environmental protection. Those regulations and agendas influence various business philosophies, including the philosophy of food supply chain management. With its focus on optimizing production and distribution of food, the traditional supply chain cannot meet the international regulations' requirements. Because of that it was necessary to go in the direction of greening the activities of the traditional supply chain, i.e. in the direction of defining the concept of a green food supply chain. The concept of a green food supply chain represents an improved, wider concept of a traditional food supply chain that, apart from standard activities, agricultural production, processing and distribution of products, also includes additional activities such as green procurement, green product design and reverse logistics. Therefore, bearing in mind that in the future food should be produced and distributed in a way that pollutes the environment as little as possible, the aim of the research is an analysis of the importance of the green supply chain concept in food production and distribution. Considering the defined goal, the literature review method was used with a focus on the Scopus database. The results of the research indicated that due to the complexity and frequent changes of regulations in practice, the green supply chain concept is still not sufficiently applied.