Coordination Mechanism and Profit Distribution of Traceability Information Sharing in the Prefabricated Food Supply Chain

Against the backdrop of the rapid growth in the scale of the prepared food market, safety issues have gradually become prominent. Establishing a traceability system has become crucial to safeguarding consumer rights and promoting the sustainable development of the industry, with traceability information sharing serving as the core link. However, affected by differences in interest demands and information asymmetry between manufacturers and retailers in the prepared food supply chain, there are obstacles to traceability information sharing. To explore the coordination mechanism of traceability information-sharing behavior in the prepared food supply chain under different decision-making models and its impact on profit distribution, this paper constructs a two-level supply chain model including manufacturers and retailers, comprehensively considers the online–offline dual-channel sales model, and distinguishes four scenarios: centralized decision-making, decentralized decision-making, retailer-led cost-sharing contract decision-making, and manufacturer-led cost-sharing contract decision-making. Using a differential game model, the equilibrium results under different decision-making models are discussed. The validity of the model is verified through fitting with empirical analysis and numerical example analysis. The research results show the following: (1) The centralized decision-making model has the best effect on increasing the market share of the prepared food supply chain, and although the cost-sharing contract model can improve it, there is still a gap. (2) The centralized decision-making model is not the one with the maximum profit, and manufacturer-led cost-sharing decision-making basically achieves Pareto optimality. The main reasons are the insufficient incentive mechanism, high coordination costs, and uneven profit distribution in centralized decision-making. (3) The impact of manufacturers’ offline channel traceability information-sharing behavior on profits is more significant than that of online channels. (4) In a market environment with information asymmetry, the impact of goodwill on the profits of prepared foods is more prominent. This research provides a theoretical basis for the management of the prepared food supply chain, helps optimize the traceability information-sharing mechanism and profit distribution plan, and promotes the healthy development of the industry. (5) When the coefficient measuring the intensity of traceability information sharing’s impact on product quality across manufacturers’ online and offline channels increases, only under the retailer-led model does product quality and goodwill exhibit a fluctuating trend of “rising from the bottom to the second place and then falling back to the bottom,” while the profits of all subjects increase simultaneously. (6) As the system attenuation coefficient increases, the evolution of product quality and goodwill under different cooperation models shows significant differences; in terms of profits, the profits of manufacturers’ online channels increase over time, while those of other subjects decrease. (7) When the discount rate rises, the manufacturer-led model presents distinct characteristics: both the ranking and absolute value of product quality decline synchronously, the ranking of goodwill falls, but its absolute value rises against the trend, the evolution of product quality and goodwill shows obvious model heterogeneity, and the profits of all subjects generally decrease.