Optimizing national food service supply chains through cloud based wholesale product management
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63665/zq23mx07Keywords:
Food Insecurity, National Security, Food Banks, Cloud-Based Platform, Web Platform, Food Product Management, Demand Prediction, Real-Time Supply Response, Logistics Challenges, Product Perishability, Charitable Food Distribution, Emergency Food Provisioning, Procurement Analysis, Vulnerable Populations, Resource Shortage, Predictive Analytics, Food Supply Networks, Platform Scalability, Cost Efficiency, Urban Food Access.Abstract
Food insecurity is a risk to national security, with food banks and pantries often the key resource in alleviating family hunger. To facilitate the ability of organizations such as food banks to address these security needs, we describe the design, development, and implementation of a cloud-based web platform that supports local food banks with the wholesale management of food product availability. With modifications to the underlying data store schema, the system can also serve needs in other food networks. The platform is tested through a full-season pilot in Richmond, Virginia, and we validate the entire approach through future procurement analyses. The results suggest that allowing food suppliers to respond in real-time to predicted demand changes can yield a greater product availability while incurring no additional intermediary costs. In addition, the implementation of the platform is relatively inexpensive and may be deployed at all levels of the food distribution infrastructure: local, regional, and national. Moreover, these implemented changes can dramatically benefit national food supply networks, potentially providing hundreds of thousands of additional food product cases to be diverted to charity food organizations each year and drastically reduce the demand and cost pressure for emergency food provisioning in urban areas.
As demand concerns and product perishability pose massive logistic challenges for commercial and non-commercial food networks alike, facilitating the ability of organizations such as food banks and pantries to increase the availability of commonly needed consumables will help alleviate widespread risk for vulnerable populations during funding and resource shortage events. With accounting for 1 in 8 individuals and 1 in 6 children in the United States dining on food bank resources today, addressing these constantly fluctuating yet predictable needs efficiently can also greatly assist funders in determining the best use for limited available funds