Designing Flexible Public Food Distribution Systems for Resilience, Equity, and Losses Under Pandemic Disruptions

Disruptions in the global food supply caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions have exposed significant vulnerabilities in food distribution systems. Designing resilient food supply chain (FSC) networks that have the flexibility to react swiftly to disruptions while ensuring fair and equitable access to quality food is vital. This study proposes a flexible multi-objective mixed-integer programme (FMOMIP) to jointly address resilience and equity during disruptions. The proposed FMOMIP aims to satisfy demand equitably while minimising food loss and overall costs in a multi-echelon FSC network. In the event of disruption, the equity weights, obtained through a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework, are applied to revise the distribution plan and minimise the inequity and food loss in the network. The proposed model is tested under various disruption scenarios, considering the case of the Targeted Public Distribution System in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that the existing storage and distribution network may be altered during disruptions to ensure equitable access to food at all demand points. Additionally, the impact of equity and other objectives on multi-echelon FSCs varies depending on the kind of disruption experienced by the system. Hence, we propose that food distribution organisations and government agencies should consider designing FSC networks that can react with higher responsiveness and incorporate equity perspectives instead of adopting a purely cost-oriented approach.