• Energy Research

The functioning of food value chains entails a complex organisation from farm to fork which is characterised by various governance forms and externalities which have shaped the overall food system. VALUMICS food value chain case studies: wheat to bread, dairy cows to milk, beef cattle to steak, farmed salmon to fillets and tomato to processed tomato were selected to enable explorative and empirical analysis to better understand the functioning of the food system and, to identify the main challenges that need to be addressed to improve sustainability, integrity, resilience, and fairness of European food chains. The VALUMICS system analysis was executed through four operational phases starting with Groundwork & analysis including mapping specific attributes and impacts of food value chains and their externalities. This was followed by Case study baseline analysis, which provided input to the third phase on Modelling and exploration of future scenarios and finally Policy and synthesis of the overall work. This report is an overall synthesis of the VALUMICS results as follows: • Key findings from the VALUMICS project on the functioning of European food value chains and their impacts on more sustainable, resilient, fairer, and transparent food system are summarised through a compilation of 25 Research Findings and Policy Briefs. • By highlighting the major contributions from the research activities throughout the four phases of the VALUMICS project, this report delivers an assessment of various factors influencing sustainability, resilience, efficiency and fairness and effective chain relationships of different food value chains, and their determinants. • The synthesis of the outcome allows the identification of opportunities and challenges characterising the functioning of food supply chains, and thus, the prospects and potentials for strengthening the EU food sector. Citation: Olafsdottir, G., Bogason, S., Aubert, P.M., Barling, D., Thakur, M., Duric, I., Nicolau, M., McGarraghy, S., Sigurdardottir; H., Samoggia, A., Holden N.M., Čechura, L., Jaghdani, T.J., Svanidze, M., Esposito., G., Monticone, F., Fedato, C., Xhelili, A., Huber, E., Hargaden, V., Saviolidis, N M., Gorton, M., Hubbard, C., Kahiluoto, H., Hoang, V.(2021). Scenario analysis report with policy recommendations: An assessment of sustainability, resilience, efficiency and fairness and effective chain relationships in VALUMICS case studies. The VALUMICS project funded by EU Horizon 2020 G.A. No 727243. Deliverable: D8.4, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, 130 pages DOI:10.5281/zenodo.6534011

Abstract The consumption of surimi made from fish has begun to see a continuous rise in demand owing to vast availability, low pricing and copious protein content. Despite visible improvements in processing and distribution trends of Indian surimi, the downstream operations of the surimi supply chain in specific lacks performance due to prolonged delays, extended waiting times and diminishing fish quality. The rising fossil fuel prices, associated emissions and increased focus on energy utilization for organizational sustainability have made this inefficiency a supply chain concern. This has indeed created a room to adjust the existing supply chain design. This work integrates the principles of lean and carries out an environmental analysis observing the utilization of water, energy and raw materials along the supply chain followed by the identification and elimination of wastes. This article aims in eliciting sustainability in downstream operations in the Indian surimi supply chain by identifying and optimizing supply chain operations using Value Stream Mapping (VSM). VSM is used as a tracking tool to capture the existing downstream operations of the surimi supply chain and propose different alternatives. Performance analysis was carried out along sustainability for different supply chain integration scenarios namely No vertical integration, Partial vertical integration and Complete vertical integration using value stream mapping and discrete event simulation model developed. It was observed that the supply chain with complete vertical integration would provide better performance in comparison to other supply chain design alternatives considered. The supply chain with complete vertical integration will reduce 74.52% of lead time, 79.68% of emissions and 81.66% of energy consumption compared to the current state. Therefore, creating a surimi supply chain with cleaner downstream operations that will lead to sustainability enhancement.