Optimization Model for Fresh Fruit Supply Chains: Case-Study of Dragon Fruit in Vietnam

We present an optimization model for dragon fruit plantations in Vietnam. The timing of cultivating and harvesting decisions are taken into account as the dragon fruit plant has an approximately ten-year life cycle with maximum average yield in the fourth year. Another consideration also included is the prevalence of forward-buying contracts with locked-in prices. The dragon fruit supply chain faces several difficulties as yield, price, and demand are highly sensitive to weather conditions and global uncertainty factors. The risk factors in the dragon fruit supply chain also depend on species—for example, the red varieties, while more profitable than the white varieties, also have higher export risk because they are subject to global prices and adverse geopolitical conditions.

Multi period pricing for managing local fruit supply chain

Recently fresh fruit sector is grown not only due to increasing of demand that spirited by healthy lifestyle but also requirement of quality food should be eaten daily. Its complexity make many research considered fruit in certain supply chain, called as Fruit Supply Chain (FSC). In FSC, customers tend to purchase products with a longer remaining lifetime and avoid the ones which give aging signal. Customer willingness to pay decreases once the product start to be deteriorated, which may cause slower demand for aging fruits. Consequently, retailers should enable discounted price for aging fruits products to retain or improve demand rate. Main purpose of this research is explaining how to maximize supply chain profit by applying dynamic pricing. A set of mathematical model is optimized on this research. It addresses dynamic pricing for FSC players to achieve better profitability. The result proves that dynamic pricing is urgent to be done which is signaled by increment of FSC Profit. FSC players can separate selling period into three periods, which are forward buying period, normal price period, and markdown price period as implementation of this scheme.