Decision and Coordination of Fresh Food Dual-Channel Supply Chain Considering Fresh-keeping Efforts and CSR

Purpose/Significance The purpose of this paper is to solve the decision-making and coordination problem of fresh dual-channel supply chain considering fresh-keeping efforts and corporate social responsibility, and provide guidance for the optimal fresh-keeping effort level of supply chain members, the investment level of corporate social responsibility and profit distribution among members. Design/Methodology This paper studied the fresh-keeping efforts and corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment decisions of a secondary fresh supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer with both online and offline channels in different decision models, and designed a “two-part pricing” contract to realize the coordination of the supply chain, and verified and analyzed by numerical examples. Conclusions/Findings It is found that consumers’ sensitivity to fresh-keeping effort is positively correlated with decision variables, market demand and corporate profit (utility) in the supply chain. With the increase of CSR undertaken by retailers, the online selling price of products will decrease significantly, but the offline selling price of products, the efforts of suppliers to keep fresh and the comprehensive benefits of the supply chain will increase significantly. The “two-part pricing” contract can realize the coordination of supply chain and the Pareto improvement of each member’s profit (or utility).