COVID-19 Impacts and Mitigation Strategies on Food Supply Chains: A Survey to the Brazilian Context

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected Food Supply Chains (FSCs), causing impacts that interfere with the normal flow of operations. This paper analyzes the COVID-19 impacts on FSCs and the main strategies to minimize their adverse effects. The research adopts a scoping review to identify impacts and strategies and an empirical study consisting of a survey with professionals operating in Brazilian SCs to discuss and validate the results. Impacts are categorized into final consumer, internal environment, and external environment. The policies are also divided into COVID-19 prevention policies and FSCs operational policies. The survey presents 45 complete responses to identify the major impacts and implementation of mitigation policies in FSCs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main impacts are increased demand, increased operating costs, and price instability. The main mitigation policies are isolation of employees with suspicious cases (COVID-19 prevention) and strong and focused leadership (Operational policy). The results provide a first validation of the research, and the authors suggest as future research the development of studies deepening other types of supply chains.