Sustainable Configuration of the Tunisian Olive Oil Supply Chain Using a Fuzzy TOPSIS-Based Approach

Agricultural production of olive oil is a sector with high significance. The olive sector is a very important sector for several countries in the world, in particular, for Tunisia. In addition, the impacts of olive oil production and extraction on economic, environmental, and social issues are consi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSustainability Vol. 13; no. 2; p. 722
Main Authors Jellali, Ahlem, Hachicha, Wafik, Aljuaid, Awad M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2021
Subjects
Agricultural production
By products
Case studies
Composts
Configurations
Decision making
Environmental impact
Food
Fuzzy logic
Job creation
Literature reviews
Methods
Multiple criterion
Natural resources
Olive oil
Petroleum industry
Social impact
Supply chains
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Italy
Tunisia
Spain
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Summary:Agricultural production of olive oil is a sector with high significance. The olive sector is a very important sector for several countries in the world, in particular, for Tunisia. In addition, the impacts of olive oil production and extraction on economic, environmental, and social issues are considerable. The main objective of this work is to propose a better configuration of the Tunisian olive oil supply chain (OOSC) from a sustainable development (SD) perspective. The proposed approach consists of applying a fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method as a multi-criteria approach. The proposed approach is applied twice. In the first application, the objective is to compare five possible scenarios for the olive agricultural phase. In the second application, the objective is to compare three possible scenarios for the olive oil transformation phase. The major findings of this research include the following: (1) The best scenario for the agricultural phase is the intensified organic system, which is based on biodynamic olive growing. (2) The best scenario for the transformation phase (oil extraction) is the continuous two-phase extraction system. Consequently, the efficient way for the by-products processing phase is the use of wet pomace for the preparation of biodynamic compost.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su13020722