Issues and Challenges in Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript proposes an study on short food supply chain systems by means of a systematic literature review whose results are evaluated by means of the SCOR method.
The manuscript is well written and organized. However, some improvements are needed before considering it for publication:
The text reported from other document/study, the use of quotation marks and the journal ruled should be followed. For instance, Lines 211-215: if these sentences are reported from another document/study, the use of quotation marks are needed. Moreover, in the text there is the reference to two footnotes (1) and (2), which are not reported. Similarly, the text in lines 217-232 needs to be clarified.
How the rating exposed in Figure 7 was obtained? How the Authors prevented the results from any bias?
Similarly, the criteria used to apply the SWOT analysis (Table 6) should be explained more in detail.
In the discussion of results, the research findings should be defined more thoroughly, bringing to light the advances in comparison with the extant studies on the same subject.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is well written and informative. I have several minor suggestions for the authors to consider (listed below).
- Section 2.1. Why was the literature review cut off at the year 2000?
- Line 130: Please provide a couple examples of the classification themes when they are first introduced. This will help the reader understand without having to jump ahead to see what is going to be discussed.
- Line 142: Consider adding a citation or example justifying the methodology used in this article.
- Line 143: Consider describing how the filtering (step 2, Figure 2) occurred for the select 44 studies.
- Figure 2, step 2: Why 2020 – 2021?
- Figure 5: The content presented in Fig. 5 is repetitive of Table 7. Consider deleting.
- Given the use of studies in 2020 and 2021, were Covid-related studies removed from the sample? Looking at Table 7, sourcing was rarely cited except for economic nature studies. I would expect this to change during the pandemic years. Given that the pandemic increased interest in SFSCs (as discussed in the introduction), the authors should mention the potential implications and how this may impact the results they are presenting in future years. Great topic but, in the midst of the pandemic, there are likely a lot of changes occurring at this moment which could impact the distribution of the SFSC i/c in the near future.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper presents an interesting proposal of analysis of the literature state on the short food supply chain. The methods of gaining the data are adequate for the subject as well as not the most common, which makes the review comprehensible. The references are recent, however, as for the review, more positions would be expected.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The Authors have improved the quality of the manuscript sufficiently. Hence, in this reviewer's opinion it can be considered for publication.
