The Role of Food Hubs in Enabling Local Sourcing for School Canteens

International audiencePublic authorities are increasingly interested in fostering short food supply chains. Starting by increasing the share of local and organic food in school canteens has a big potential but requires the redesign of the physical distribution system to make short food supply chains competitive and sustainable. Food Hubs (FH) have been identified in the literature as enablers of sustainable and efficient food supply chains. This chapter describes the functions and characteristics of FH used for school canteens, and analyses how these FH should be designed to increase local and organic products share in school canteens. The results show that changing allocation from the current one—based on administrative subdivision—to a geographical proximity-based allocation could lead to 25% reductions in vehicle-kilometres travelled

Short Supply Chains as a Viable Alternative for the Distribution of Food in Urban Areas? Investigation of the Performance of Several Distribution Schemes

In recent years, alternative forms of consumption in conventional food systems have emerged across the world. Specifically, the concept of short food supply chains advocates consumption of local products and distribution with maximum one (or ideally none) intermediary between the producer and the consumer. The objective of these consumption patterns is to reduce the externalities caused by conventional consumption modes, bring closer consumers and producers, and allow small-scale farmers to diversify their production, capturing greater value added, and ensuring more stable incomes. A large variety of typology of short supply chains can be distinguished, ranging from direct sales and distribution by producers to Internet sales through e-commerce operators.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe