Food supply chain and Covid-19: immediate impact and post-pandemic strategies

The food sector has been one of the industry fields most severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemics. The food industry, indeed, manufactures essential items, and as such, it is expected to continue supplying goods, despite the (even exceptional) external disruptions. This is why at the beginning of the pandemic period, there has been a great deal of worry regarding food production, processing, distribution, as well as significant changes in the demand for finished products, with various observed phenomena. The Covid-19 pandemic also had a negative impact on the food supply chain from a financial point of view, because of restrictions in labour, unavailability of suppliers and difficulties in quickly finding alternative vendors. This paper aims at summarizing the key issues experienced by the food supply chains during the Covid-19 pandemic and then at delineating appropriate strategies for building more resilient chains in the post-pandemic period. To achieve this stated aim, the chosen research methodology is the systematic review of the literature, as the food industry was one of the most investigated systems in the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Results are expected to categories the available knowledge about the role of Covid-19 on food supply chains, as well as to provide some useful guidelines for managing food supply chain in the future.