Extraordinary Strains in Food Supply Chains: A Literature Review on COVID-19 Induced Food Supply Chain Disruptions and Resilience

Abstract

As a new agitator of Supply Chain disruptions, COVID-19 global pandemic has significantly triggered an extraordinary series of shocks on food supply chains worldwide including bottlenecks in farm labor, processing, transportation, and logistics, as well as the significant swings in customer demand. Many of these strains are the consequences of policies enacted to prevent spreading the virus. The food industry is one of the important sectors in each economy. While the consequences of COVID-19 are still being felt, past experience has shown the necessity of a well-organized and foreseeable global trade environment in ensuring that food reaches people in need. In order to avoid the impending global food crisis, it's critical to examine how COVID-19 has impacted food supply networks and to discover the potential remedies. Hence, the main objectives of this literature analysis are to examine the nature of COVID-19's induced food supply chain disruptions in worldwide and to highlight strategies needed to mitigate the adverse effects of pandemic on the food supply chains as well as to enhance the resilience of worldwide food supply chains. This scrutiny has been conducted using a comprehensive and systematic review of literature published in relation to the impact of COVID-19 on food supply chains and this study included the content of 30 articles which were selected as per the Prisma approach. In reviewing the selected literature, steps of thematic analysis are considered to derive the major findings. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the adoption of emergency-preparedness procedures and the development of food supply chain contractual transactions across the worldwide nations. Without reverting to the previous state of food supply chains, novel experience resultant from COVID-19 emphasized the importance of building a smart food value chain with the involvement of all value adding stakeholders in order to ensure the resilience amidst and beyond the crisis.