Quality, safety and sustainability in food distribution: a review of quantitative operations management approaches and challenges

The management of food distribution networks is receiving more and more attention, both in practice and in the scientific literature. In this paper, we review quantitative operations management approaches to food distribution management, and relate this to challenges faced by the industry. Here, our main focus is on three aspects: food quality, food safety, and sustainability. We discuss the literature on three decision levels: strategic network design, tactical network planning, and operational transportation planning. For each of these, we survey the research contributions, discuss the state of the art, and identify challenges for future research.