Title: The role of wholesale markets in food supply chain resilience

Authors: Ilias P. Vlachos; Emeline Thiesset; Rajesh Singh; George Malindretos

Addresses: Excelia Group, Excelia Business School, La Rochelle, France ' Excelia Group, Excelia Business School, La Rochelle, France ' Operations and Supply Chain Management, Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon, India ' Home Economics and Ecology Department, Harokopio University of Athens, Thiseos 70, Kallithea 176 76, Greece

Abstract: Over half of the world's population live in cities and rapid urbanisation is expected to continue in the future. Urban-regional food systems connect supply chain stakeholders from rural and urban areas, yet they are far from being resilient as was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. This study examines the case study of the Rungis-Paris wholesale market in France to uncover how this wholesale market acted as a supply chain integrator in this regional food systems during the pandemic crisis. Findings show that the Rungis-Paris market facilitated the collaboration among regional food system actors to improve the supply chain resilience; collaboration practices included integrative partnerships, joint digitisation, cooperative reverse logistics, multi-stakeholder control, and collective learning. The supply chain collaboration enabled the creation of supply chain resilience capabilities anticipation, adaptability, and agility (Triple-A).

Keywords: supply chain resilience; food supply chains; Paris-Rungis market; COVID-19 pandemic; wholesale markets; urban-regional food systems; anticipation; adaptability; agility; regional food systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2023.133079

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2023 Vol.14 No.3, pp.346 - 375

Received: 18 Oct 2022
Accepted: 17 Apr 2023
Published online: 30 Aug 2023 *

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