| Abstrakt: |
Purpose: The production of processed food is a fast-growing and important industry in developing countries, with a large potential to improve its sustainability performance based on the triple bottom line concept. However, there are limited sustainability assessment (SA) studies reported for food manufacturing in developing countries. Thus, the prime objective of this study is to evaluate the sustainability performance of food (Tamar Cocoa) manufacturing and packaging activities in Malaysia with a gate-to-gate perspective by using a recently developed comprehensive method by Ahmad et al. (2019a). Methods: To achieve these objectives, the comprehensive and integrated stochastic-fuzzy (CISF) SA method was used. For the performance assessment and analysis, fuzzy logics and Monte Carlo simulations were used for fuzzy and stochastic uncertainties, respectively. In order to have a comprehensive and precise evaluation, a set of 57 and relatively weighted indicators was employed for all three sustainability dimensions. Various site visits were conducted to collect the primary data from a small-sized Malaysian food manufacturing company. Results and discussion: The results uncovered the company-wide key high- and low-performing areas. The analysis at the sustainability dimensions' level revealed that the case company performed better in terms of environmental performance than social and economic dimensions. With respect to social dimension, comparatively, the company performed better with respect to working conditions, but it needed to improve the area of customer wellbeing. However, the overall sustainability index revealed that various challenges and opportunities exist for the case study company to boost its sustainability performance and move towards the ideal sustainability level. Based on the results, the potential solutions and priority improvement areas were also discussed for the case company. Conclusions: The results were also compared with another related study from the literature. The CISF method was found to be a useful and reliable approach for a triple bottom line-based SA and comparison that provides a unit-less sustainability index. Overall, the SA studies may have an important impact to ameliorate the level of sustainability performance of the food processing and manufacturing companies in the developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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