A New Hybrid Triple Bottom Line Metrics and Fuzzy MCDM Model: Sustainable Supplier Selection in the Food-Processing Industry

Abstract

Vietnam’s food processing and production industries in the past have managed to receive many achievements, contributing heavily to the growth of the country’s economic growth, especially the production index. Even with an increase of 7% per year over the past five years, the industry cur-rently also faces problems and struggles that require business managers to rewrite legal documents and redevelop the business environment as well as the production conditions in order to compete better and use the available resources. Xanthan gum (a food additive and a thickener) is one of the most used ingredients in the food-processing industry. Xanthan gum is utilized in a number of va-riety of products such as canned products, ice cream, meats, breads, candies, drinks, milk products, and many others. Therefore, in order to improve competitiveness, the stage of selecting raw-mate-rial suppliers is a complicated task. The purpose of this study was to develop a new composite model using Triple Bottom Line Metrics, the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method, and the Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo) algorithm for the selection of suppliers. The application process was accomplished for the Xanthan-gum (β-glucopyranose (C35H49O29)n) supplier selection in a food processing industry. In this study, the model building, solution, and application processes of the proposed integrated model for the supplier selection in the food-processing industry are presented.