Digitization and optimisation food distribution in case : war or pandemic

Abstract

The food supply chain (FSC) plays a critical role in ensuring the availability, quality, and timely delivery of food products to consumers. However, the FSC faces numerous challenges, including maintaining product integrity, the complexity of the food distribution process, and addressing supply shortages, which can impact healthcare and consumers access to food especially in emergency situations. This study focuses on improving the FSC in case of disaster, specifically within the Food Distribution Centers (FDC) in Algeria. The FDC faced challenges related to food calculations, efficiency, paperwork,demand forecasting, and inventory management. To address these challenges, an intelligent food distribution system is developed with the objectives of improving efficiency, fair distribution and making it more effective,reducing errors, simplifying documentation, and optimizing inventory management. This system utilizes artifical intelligence techniques, specifically YOLO algorithm, for food detection and classification. Limitations and challenges such as data quality, technical expertise, implementation costs, privacy,security, and system integration are considered. Despite these challenges, the proposed intelligent supply chain system has the potential to simplify operations and enhance the effectiveness of food supply chains, eventually benefiting FDC and improving consumers access to essential food products.