Abstract

The food sector is under tremendous pressure to make its supply chains more resource efficient. In this context, the focus is on the reduction of the three nexus components which are food waste, energy and water. One of the key challenges identified in improving resource efficiency is the low availability of real-time data to all the actors of the food supply chain (FSC) which inhibits better decision-making capability. Having such an ability would increase the productivity of the supply chain. The Internet of things (IoT) concept, which has been around for a few years now, provides the possibility of monitoring, bringing in transparency and efficiency to supply chain activities. This paper investigates the practicability of utilising IoT concepts to improve the resource efficiency of FSCs. An IoT-based framework and methodology are proposed to integrate suitable data into supply chain decision-making processes for the reduction of nexus components.