Smart packaging adoption in fresh fruits and vegetables supply chains

Butuc, O, Akkerman, R and De Leeuw, S ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3056-8775, 2025. Smart packaging adoption in fresh fruits and vegetables supply chains. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 36 (7), pp. 284-307. ISSN 0957-4093

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the influencing aspects behind the decision of smart packaging (SP) adoption for fresh fruits and vegetables and what improvement directions facilitate such adoption.

Design/methodology/approach: Empirical data are collected from interviewees who are active in the supply chain of fruits and vegetables and have expertise about their packaging. The data are analysed using the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability framework coupled with relational diagrams.

Findings: The paper provides empirical insights about the influencing aspects (categorized into motivations, opportunities and abilities) and improvement directions of SP adoption for fresh fruits and vegetables. Key motivations to adopt SP are reduced food loss and waste, increased supply chain efficiency and increased employment in developing countries. Important opportunities relate to the possibility of exploiting longer supply chains and contextual barriers that reduce SP necessity, unclear consumer purchasing preferences for SP and legislative barriers. The supply chain actors' abilities identified are collaboration and stakeholders' awareness. The improvement directions identified relate to actions for increasing the ease of using SP and reducing the associated costs.

Originality/value: Despite the extensive knowledge available in the literature, SP adoption in practice is still quite limited, especially on fruits and vegetables. This research's empirical findings contribute to closing this gap and suggest improvement directions for SP adoption on fruits and vegetables, thus minimizing loss and waste along the supply chain.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	The International Journal of Logistics Management
Creators:	Butuc, O., Akkerman, R. and De Leeuw, S.
Publisher:	Emerald
Date:	December 2025
Volume:	36
Number:	7
ISSN:	0957-4093
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1108/IJLM-08-2024-0521 DOI 2487169 Other
Rights:	© Oana Butuc, Renzo Akkerman and Sander de Leeuw. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at Link to the terms of the CC BY 4.0 licence.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	20 Aug 2025 08:51
Last Modified:	20 Aug 2025 08:51
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54233

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