Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to formulate and solve a last-mile distribution plan problem with concern for the quality of fruits and vegetables in cold chains. Design/methodology/approach: The vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) is extended based on the characteristics of...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to deal with an optimal consolidation problem for fresh agricultural products (e.g. fruits and vegetables) in a multi-temperature joint distribution (MTJD) system that is developed to resolve the challenge of timely delivery of small and diverse shipments...