Actions and Strategies for Coronavirus to Ensure Supply Chain Resilience: A Systemic Review

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak adversely impacted agri-food supply chains and caused a severe socio-economic crisis worldwide. Preventive measures taken by several countries have affected production and distribution. Moreover, producers have had to face difficulties related to changes in local and international export markets, a decrease in the labor force due to the spread of the virus, and challenges in harvesting, processing, and shipment of products. However, despite the extraordinary nature of the disruption, supply chains have demonstrated a fair, resilient, and sustainable crisis recovery. Although a large number of papers deal with supply chains and the pandemic’s impact, a review of measures implemented that comprehensively includes resilience dimensions is still lacking. The scope of this paper is to survey available literature in order to understand whether there are classes of actions and strategies undertaken by meat supply chains in managing the pandemic. Documents were reviewed through a protocol based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) review technique. The survey highlights which actions have enabled supply chain resilience by underling virtuous behaviors and lessons learned. These findings support the need for further investigation of supply chain resilience and offer practitioners guidance toward a greater understanding of impacts and implementable strategies.