Sustainable and Resilient Circular Supply Chain Design in Food Industry by a Multi-Stage Fermatean Fuzzy Rough Group Decision-Making Approach

Supply chain network design is a strategic framework that optimizes the flow of materials, information, and resources. Designing such networks under circular economy principles requires an integrated approach that embeds economic, environmental, sustainability, and resilience criteria into competitive priorities. To address incomplete data, diverse information, subjective judgments, and cognitive limitations, this study introduces a novel multi-stage circular supplier solution method based on a Fermatean fuzzy rough approach. Unlike conventional models, the proposed framework combines Fermatean fuzzy rough weighted sum and weighted product techniques to simultaneously capture uncertainty, imprecision, and subjectivity in supplier evaluation and network design. A distinctive strength of the method lies in its capacity to handle incomplete information without predefined parameters, thereby reducing distortion and information loss, enabling experts to fine-tune precision, and overcoming constraints in circular supplier selection. The framework further integrates suppliers’ sustainability and circular economy ratings directly into supply chain configuration. Empirical validation using expert data from Iran’s food, dairy, and beverage sectors, covering raw material suppliers, production facilities, and logistics centers evaluated against sustainability and circularity criteria, demonstrates that embedding circular economy and resilience objectives reshapes supplier prioritization, with sustainability-oriented suppliers outperforming cost-driven ones. Sensitivity analysis confirms robustness, as a ±10% variation in the conservatism coefficient results in less than a 5% change in outcomes, while comparative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed model in achieving higher decision validity, consistency, and transparency. Overall, this study advances multi-criteria decision-making under uncertainty and equips managers and policymakers with a rigorous and adaptable tool for developing sustainable and resilient circular supply networks in emerging economies.