Agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) play a key role in the global economy, involving numerous actors who trade agricultural products across different value chain stages. Recently, consumer preferences have shifted, emphasizing the origin and quality of raw materials in production regions. This has led to stricter trade requirements and sustainability standards from the last mile of the chain, influencing the market dynamics of agricultural exports. For example, Colombia, a key exporter of primary agricultural products in Latin America, has seen notable growth in its agricultural trade, with key products like cacao, which lately emerged as a strategic product due to its market stability and rising global demand.
Nevertheless, meeting consumer-driven quality standards remains a challenge for many farmers in the first mile of the chain due to inefficiencies in harvesting and processing. To address this, a viable approach to enhance the efficiency of first-mile processes and thereby improving overall quality might be the design of better postharvest transformation operations and the implementation of circular economy (CE) practices in the first mile of the AFSC.
The adoption of CE in agri-food supply chains provides numerous benefits. For instance, it contributes to waste reduction, lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and soil health and biodiversity conservation. In addition, CE can foster new business models, create new market opportunities while generating cost savings in production processes.
This research focuses on implementing CE practices in the first mile of the cacao supply chain, using also analytics models, optimization and simulation models, to enhance postharvest operations. The research aims to determine which circular strategies can ensure high-quality cacao production while increasing farmers’ profitability. Our work has focused on enhancing the cacao agri-food supply chain in Colombia. We propose a three-stage methodology incorporating operational research tools: (1) problem and system identification within the AFSC, (2) analyzing the implementation of CE practices, and (3) designing recommendations for the AFSC. Additionally, stakeholder interaction and data collection (represented by light gray boxes in the figure) play a crucial role throughout the process, ensuring the relevance and applicability of the proposed strategies.