The resilience factors of the agri-food supply chain: An integrative review of the literature in the context of the covid-19 pandemic

What factors have a positive impact on the resilience of supply chains? This question has been raised in several academic research papers, particularly in recent years, coinciding with a series of disruptions (healthcare, political and climate) that have shaken the reliability of a global logistics gear that seemed infallible. In this context, the motivation of this article is to provide new knowledge that helps identify the key elements of business management that guarantee greater reliability and security in the supply of products. More specifically, this research focuses on studying the causal relationship that exists between resilience and sustainability in the management of agri-food chains to generate valuable knowledge for the leaders of companies that have to deal with these two transformations. Through a qualitative comparative analysis methodology, taking a sample of eight Spanish distribution companies, the results obtained indicate that the strength of supply chains has a strong link to strategies to improve environmental, social and governance sustainability. This is a conclusion that provides interesting value, reaffirming that it is possible to design and execute supply chains that make sustainability and resilience compatible.

Distribution companies in the Spanish agri-food sector have shown a high level of resilience during the COVID-19 crisis, as they have always guaranteed a high availability of product in stores (more than 90%) despite the changes in demand themselves from such an uncertain context. The scientific literature already identifies some specific factors that can positively influence the robustness of their logistics processes, such as proximity supply models, collaboration between value chain actors, and customer-oriented strategies. But this chapter seeks to delve into the relevance that technology can have as an element of supply chain resilience, concluding that it is an important but not yet determining factor. The companies that took part in the study, which represent more than 50% of the Spanish agri-food distribution, have shown that the technological capacity of their companies does not have a direct correlation with their current level of resilience, although in at the same time, they consider it a binomial that has a lot of potential and needs to be developed.