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Top1. Introduction
Globally population is surging at very high rates, it being estimated that it’s going to breach the mark of 15 billion at turn of century (Gharehgozli et al., 2017). To cater the masses, food production levels needs to be ramped up in effective and efficient manner. Although, programmes felicitating the agricultural production levels like green revolution, awareness about the usage of natural resources has resulted in the three-fold expansion of the production levels (FAO, 2017). But, share of the population suffering from the malnutrition and hunger is also significant (Keating et al. 2014). Rampantly increasing demand for the variety of food items, with in limited availability of the land, energy and water resources is burdening food producers to over produce (Schmidhuber & Tubiello, 2007).
Nowadays, dynamics of the FSC needs to be updated, operating protocols and practices governing procurement, storage, processing, retailing and distribution should be reinvestigated. In tradition practices of FSC, flow of the information, commodities and money was restricted up to a limited geographical regime. Such, FSC cannot feed the population globally as their potencies needs to be revamped. Current FSCs, needs to be transformed into ventures of global FSC, where its allied practices are being exercised in various geographical diversities and collaborative actions feed the consumers. Although, this will increase the distance between farm to fork, but FSC potencies will be diverged, in terms of enhanced rate of production and consumption of food commodities, strengthening the dimension of food safety and security.
Recent developments in the domain of information technology and increased accessibility to the internet services has revolution every walk of the life. Adoption of the new technologies having roots in the domain of information technology and data analytics have rendered solution to the multiple problems associated with the business practices (Kirs and Bagchi, 2012). Integration of the various internet based communication technologies and data monitoring modules with the business and management practices, has coined the new term called ‘EB’ (Chatzoglou and Chatzoudes, 2016). ‘EB’ help firms in assessment of the customer demand, monitor market conditions, evolving forecasting based solutions, governing of the product flow at various operational tiers of FSC. Furthermore, implication of the internet, uplift the performance of FSC, minimises operation cost and ensure prompt product deliveries. For better visualisation of the afore mentioned linkages between the ‘EB’ and FSC, figure 1 is outlaid.
In developing economy of India, food industries and their supply chains (SCs) are establishing the venues of profitability and employment (Sharma et al. 2020). Indian FSCs have the responsibility to feed the consumer base of 130 crores and is backed up count of 39,700 food industries. As per the data compiled by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries of India (MOPFI, Government of India), Indian food industries whoops a healthy annual turnover of the US$258 Billion and spikes the annual growth rate of eight percent per annum (Sharma et al. 2020). FSC operations contribute a significant share of the 8.3 percent in gross domestic product of financial year 2017-18 (Annual reports, MOFPI).
FSC often deal with the perishability of the food items, its production and consumption are affected by the seasonal variabilities, regional boundaries, quality assurance etc. It demands for the round the clock monitoring of the product and chain processes, because end product is meant for the consumption purpose. Hence, ‘EB’ plays a crucial role, in conduction of the transactional processes by embedding internet based monitoring and communication systems. ‘EB’ practices help to establish the exchange of various real time information associated with the flow of food commodities, through the various channels of FSC, it also aids data logging, which strengthen the process of planning and controlling.
Presented work is aimed to strengthen the FSC performance system by integrating it with the working spirits of ‘EB’ environment. All the facts and figures highlighted above, depicts the importance of effective and efficient FSC and detail about the various benefits bundled with integration of ‘EB’ practices. This study is sequenced to answer the following research queries: