As the Indian population is increasing, the demand for
fresh fruits and vegetables is also increasing. Owing to
the perishable nature and very short shelf life, these items
require storage and transportation facilities in
order to reach to the customer in fresh state. This requires
a considerable amount of effort from the involved parties.
The entire chain is fraught with issues like lack of transparency
in pricing (at the farmers' end), dominance of traders,
weak links in supply chain, etc. This leads to loss of revenue
to the farmer and increased additional costs to the other
supply chain partners, which ultimately enforces the final
consumer to bear extra burden on his pocket. Since organized
retail has started showing interest in fresh fruit and vegetable
markets and has already entered into the market with huge
investments, the issues involved in this supply chain have
changed dramatically and are influencing not only the supply
chain partners but also the whole agriculture sector in
India. The present study undertakes a thorough review of
basic and contemporary literature and tries to explain the
factors influencing Indian fruit and vegetable markets and
their effects on the supply chain partners. It also brings
out relevant research gaps and overlooked problems in the
supply chain.
The manual, Improving Your Supply Chain (Solomon, 1998,
p. 3) published by Federal Government's Industry, Science
and Technology Department, defines a supply chain as "an
organization that covers the full range of activities from
the earliest level of input through the internal processes
in the host organization and on to the output distribution
system. The input elements cover the supply of raw materials,
components, assemblies and packaging. The internal elements
cover goods inwards receipt, warehousing, movement to line
operations, work in progress storage and movement, finished
goods inventory, picking, palletizing and despatch. The
output end of the chain covers wholesale distribution, external
warehousing retail distribution, returns and service and
anything necessary to get the product to the client in the
most satisfactory way. The supply represents the physical
value chain of the host organization". Figure 1 captures
the essence of agri-supply chain.
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