| dc.description.abstract | Food production and consumption activities are identified as one of the most important drivers of environmental pressure, which draws public concerns about the environmental issues in food industry. Though many food companies try to develop proactive environmental strategies, the concept of food miles or carbon footprint shows that suppliers actually play an important role in improving environmental performance. Therefore, one important issue that arises is how to select and evaluate the right food suppliers to help to reduce the negative impacts on the environment.
This study reviewed the relational literatures on the subject of supplier selection, and tried to build up the selection model based on the questionary survey result. Then it uses analytic hierarchy process method to determine the weights of the evaluation criteria under the consideration for improving environmental impacts, and simulates the food supplier selection situation to test the validity and performance of the model.
The research finds that the top ten evaluation criteria are food hygiene and safety, hygiene management, product quality, compliance with laws and regulations, food traceability, delivery accuracy, warranties and claim policies, degree of adaptability, crisis management and handling, and specialized knowledge. The analysis result shows that food companies most value factors associated with food hygiene and safety, and least care about green factors. But the researcher also discovers that the top three green criteria (i.e. hazardous substance management, sustainable agriculture practices, and green packaging) can more or less help to manage food safety issues, making food companies are more willing to adopt these green practices. As a result, firms can try to integrate these three criteria into their food supplier selection process, encouraging their food supplier to improve the green performance of supply chain. | en_US |