The accurate operation of a Food Supply Chain (FSC) is a critical issue as it directly interfaces with health and safety matters. This study addresses coordination and conflict management in a three-level FSC that embraces a new inventory type known as growing items like poultry and livestock. The chain involves a rearing farm as the supplier, a processed food producer as the manufacturer, and multiple processed food retailers. Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is applied by the manufacturer to handle the retailers' systems and prevent replenishment mismatches and thereby food waste. To increase its market coverage, the manufacturer needs to provide the retailers with enough incentives to enter this setting. So, a cost-sharing contract is designed under which the manufacturer undertakes a fraction of the retailers’ holding costs. Accordingly, the manufacturer faces two contradictory targets, increasing its market coverage by convincing the retailers to enter the system on the one hand and managing its costs efficiently on the other hand. An analytic solution approach with a game-theoretic perspective is developed to solve the model. Extensive numerical experiments and a case study are provided, presenting fruitful managerial insights that can be utilized by the policymakers and chain members under different settings. The results highlight the efficiency of our VMI and cost-sharing collaboration scheme in enhancing the performance of the chain.

Revenue and inventory management play a crucial role in the operational efficiency of food supply chains. The current study investigates dynamic pricing and inventory control policies in a two-level Food Supply Chain (FSC) of growing and deteriorating inventory that involves a rearing farm as the supplier and a retailer where these slaughtered items are prone to deterioration. The rearing farm breeds newborn animals, then slaughters them and sends the items to the retailer. The negative impact of overbreeding is taken into account to preserve the items’ quality and decrease food waste on the supply side. The model is analyzed under decentralized and centralized supply chain scenarios with a profit-sharing contract as the coordination tool in the centralized case. An analytic solution approach based on non-linear convex programming is developed to solve the problem. The developed structure is illustrated through experimental results with a real estimated growth function for broiler chickens. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to investigate the impact of different input parameters. It is shown that the centralized supply chain scenario not only enhances the profit of the supplier and the retailer but also is more desirable for the customers as the selling price of the items decreases in this setting. The results provide decision-makers of each echelon with insights into the features of the studied FSC, including their most influential input parameters, the areas that require further attention, and managerial suggestions under different scenarios.