Operational Practices Catalogue for Sustainable Citrus Supply Chains

The agricultural supply chain involves various activities and processes that facilitate the flow of food products from farms to consumers, including various logistics activities such as packaging and transportation. Sustainable operational practices within the food supply chain play an essential role in delivering fresh and high-quality agricultural products to consumers with fresh and high-quality agricultural products, while optimizing resource utilization, minimizing food loss, and supporting healthy nutrition of the consumers. This chapter aims to discuss the key operational practices and the associated logistics activities along the citrus supply chain to increase sustainability and circularity within the food systems. To achieve this, the chapter reviews the operational and agricultural practices published in the literature, including journal papers, book chapters, and conference papers, which focused specifically on the citrus supply chains and their relationship to citrus loss and waste. Overall, most of the reviewed studies focused on the agricultural practices at the farm level and operational practices in the processing stages, but rarely on the downstream of the supply chain. It has been concluded that the different operational practices have their benefits and challenges, and the choice of methods would depend on various factors such as the available resources, the specific requirements of the citrus variety, and the target market’s regulations. Recommendations for future research were also provided.