Fresh food dual-channel supply chain considering consumers’ low-carbon and freshness preferences

Abstract

Due to growing concerns for environmental problems and food quality, consumers pay more attention to the carbon emission and freshness of fresh food. The booming e-commerce also accelerates the development of the dual-channel supply chain. In the dual-channel supply chain of fresh food, the carbon emission and freshness of fresh food are becoming important factors affecting consumers’ purchase demand. This paper focuses on the optimal decision of carbon emission reduction and pricing, which is investigated by a Stackelberg game-theoretic approach in three dual-channel supply chain sales models (retailer dual channel, producer dual channel, and mixed dual channel). A two-stage fresh food supply chain system composed of a producer and a retailer is ex-plored. The sensitivity analysis and the comparison of three dual-channel models are carried out. The results show the following: (1) the sales price, carbon emission reduction, market demand, pro-ducer’s profit, retailer’s profit, and supply chain’s profit of fresh food under the three dual-channel supply chains show the same change on different levels of consumers’ low-carbon preference coef-ficient and freshness level, respectively; (2) the optimal decision of carbon emission reduction and pricing, demand, and profit of the three dual-channel models need to be determined according to the value of consumers’ purchasing preferences for the retailer’s offline channel. The paper gives some enlightenment to the decision-making members in the fresh dual-channel supply chain.