Unravelling major barriers in implementation of vegetable cold supply chain in India: an intuitionistic fuzzy MARCOS-TOPSIS based approach

Purpose In the context of cold supply chain (CSC) management, highly perishable agricultural produce, specifically vegetables, is often neglected and is given less consideration due to several obstacles in developing countries. The purpose of the work is to identify and prioritise major barriers in the implementation of vegetable cold supply chain management (VCSCM) in India. Design/methodology/approach The identified obstacles have been prioritised utilising Intuitionistic Fuzzy Measurement of Alternatives and Ranking according to COmpromose Solution (MARCOS) and the ranking results are verified by Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach utilising the Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS) theory-based concept. Findings Governmental policy B2 is ranked first with the implementation of the IF-MARCOS approach with a utility degree of 0.7041. Reluctant culture (B6) is ranked second after the governmental policy with utility degree 0.6773. These two challenges are identified as major barriers in VCSCM in India by both approaches. Research limitations/implications One of the main limitations is the difficulty in accessing data and information from the experts. Despite much effort, only information/data from six experts has been obtained. MARCOS approach under IFS theory has a considerable chance to prove itself as one of the good Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approaches. Future research entails a more thorough survey to collect data from a greater number of experts. The expert panel, including more members from other fields under different MCDM approaches, is also seen as the future scope of work. The government policies are key factors for the growth and development of the agriculture CSC in India. The policies should be directed for the construction of new mandis with refrigerated cold storage facilities. Modern warehouses with temperature-controlled environments should be designed for the storage of different types of vegetables. Social implications India is a land of vegetable-growing farmers with small landholdings, and they are marginalised, due to the low income obtained from the produce of agriculture. In the absence of an efficient supply chain and the fear of spoilage of the vegetables, these farmers are compelled to sell their produce either in the mandi or in the local market. In this situation, they obtain a low return on their vegetables. The fresh vegetable supply chain has not been paid due attention. Elimination of the barriers will result in growth of the vegetable supply chain in India, and thereby the economic condition of the farmers will be improved. Originality/value Unlike the CSC of milk, meat and vaccination, this paper outlines major barriers in the implementation of the supply chain of vegetables from farm to end customers under the purview of CSC aspects. In the proposed work, efforts have been made to outline and prioritise the various obstacles that hinder the thriving of the CSC of vegetables using IF-MARCOS-IF-TOPSIS approaches. Sensitivity analysis has also been done under both the approaches. Under the IF-MARCOS approach, the sensitivity analysis has been done by varying the weight of the most influential experts, while in the IF-TOPSIS approach, sensitivity analysis has been conducted by varying the restriction constant.