Abstract: Fresh agricultural products have prominent biological characteristics that are perishable over time. At the same time, the loss rate of fresh agricultural products in transportation and circulation is also severe. According to the survey results, statistics show that only two fruits and vegetables due to loss cause severe economic losses, which dramatically affect the fresh produce supply chain members of the profit. With the improvement of people’s living standards, consumers pursue the safety of fresh agricultural products and the high quality of fresh agricultural products, and freshness is an important indicator to measure the quality of fresh agricultural products. Therefore, consumers’ demand for high freshness drives the fresh agricultural products supply chain members to put in more freshness preservation efforts. In recent years, some scholars have begun to pay attention to the relationship between freshness and temperature and time and have carried out related research by combining the characteristics of fresh produce. However, none have considered freshness as a function of the dynamic change of temperature control inputs. In addition, from the perspective of consumers, some scholars have suggested that consumer preference is another crucial factor in determining the demand for fresh produce but have not yet suggested that consumer preference is a function of the dynamic change in freshness.
Therefore, this paper raises the following questions: 1)What is the optimal temperature control input strategy in centralized and decentralized scenarios? 2)How do consumer preferences and discount rates affect the optimal strategy? 3)What kind of contract can be designed to coordinate this supply chain perfectly?
To address the above problem, this paper considers a three-level fresh produce supply chain in which suppliers, retailers, and TPL determine their respective temperature control inputs, where suppliers determine the selling price of fresh produce:1) Give the optimal temperature control input strategies for fresh produce under centralized and decentralized scenarios;2)Compare equilibriums under the two scenarios; And 3)propose a mutual cost-sharing-with-fixed-subsidy contract to coordinate the fresh produce supply chain. The primary study shows that the larger the share of each member of the three-tier fresh produce supply chain in the overall benefits of the supply chain, the more significant the proportion of temperature control input costs that they are willing to bear for each other and vice versa.
We consider the retailer side for temperature control inputs in future studies. In addition, the article does not consider other costs of the three parties in the supply chain, such as the supplier’s management costs, the retailer’s sales costs, and the TPL’s maintenance costs, etc. However, the related costs of the three parties in the supply chain can be considered in future research. Finally, to encourage all parties in the fresh produce supply chain to increase their investment in temperature control, the government will subsidize the supply chain parties and introduce their subsidies into the relevant model. The article does not consider government subsidies, however, in future research, introducing government subsidies for fresh produce’s temperature control input strategy is also of practical significance.

Key words: fresh produce supply chain, freshness, consumer preference, temperature control inputs, supply chain coordination

摘要： 针对生鲜农产品三级供应链温度控制投入的最优动态决策与协调问题,考虑供应链供应商、零售商和第三方物流服务商三方温度控制投入对生鲜农产品新鲜度的共同影响,分别构建集中式和批发价分散式决策下微分博弈模型,并比较两种决策情形下最优温度控制投入水平和供应链的各成员及整体利润。利用“互为成本分担-带固定补贴契约”对供应链进行协调,并结合数值算例,对不同决策情形下影响参数进行了敏感性分析和协调机制效果分析。研究表明:协调机制下“互为成本分担-带固定补贴契约”与批发价分散决策相比,协调机制下“互为成本分担-带固定补贴契约”供应链供应商、零售商和第三方物流服务商能够得到帕累托改善。

关键词: 生鲜农产品供应链, 新鲜度, 消费者偏好, 温度控制投入, 供应链协调