Time-temperature transparency in the cold chain

Abstract

A study concerning time-temperature information sharing behavior in the one-step forward chilled and frozen food supply chains was conducted. We mailed 1774 questionnaires to food manufacturing companies in Taiwan with a response rate of 7.0%. We showed that obtaining raw materials time-temperature information from suppliers was more difficult than obtaining processed food product information from food manufacturers. The determinant factors considered were also different. For sharing time temperature information on raw materials during distribution from suppliers to food manufacturers, the relative power of food manufacturers, business strategy, and raw material quality uncertainty were important. However, for sharing information on processed product during distribution from food manufacturers to buyers, only business strategy and processed product quality uncertainty were important. This implies that requesting information from suppliers requires more effort. In addition, when zooming in, we found that the time-temperature sharing strategies of companies differ in the subsectors. For instance, the chilled food sector has higher willingness to share time-temperature information than the frozen food sector. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.