Alternative Food Networks and Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review Based on a Case Study Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article addresses a relevant subject and provides a valuable contribution to this field of research, giving the particular fact that it is based on updated references from different corners of the world. The research objectives are clear (lines 54-56), and the methodology (systematic literature review/PRISMA) is well explained and seems to have been well implemented.

The main topics investigated (six categories) are quite relevant, as reflect main concerns in the study of AFNs and SFSCs and widely present in the literature. 

The conclusions are consistent and in line with the research objectives. The authors should verify the numbers mentioned in lines 153-154 (17 or 19?) and 162-163. It is not clear why “countries targeted” by the analyzed papers were included in Fig. 2 (and not all papers are included!).

There is at least one occasion where the authors use AFN(s) instead of the usual AFNs. The authors should strive for better consistency in writing.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Dear Reviewer 1, 

Thank you for your review and for taking the time to work with us. It was very helpful for us to improve the paper based on your comments. And we appreciate that our work was appreciated by you.

 

Below are responses to some of the points you highlighted:

 

Thank you very much for your work as reviewer.

Please see the attachment with also the word version.

POINT 1:

The authors should verify the numbers mentioned in lines 153-154 (17 or 19?) and 162-163.

 

Response 1:

Please find my changes that improve and clarify this point.

Regarding lines 153-154 (in the new version they correspond to lines 226-227) the correct number is 19. We got confused with the number and I thank you for pointing it out. The same goes for lines 162-163 (in the new version they correspond to lines 235). Again, the correct number is still 19.

 

Point 2: It is not clear why “countries targeted” by the analyzed papers were included in Fig. 2 (and not all papers are included!).

 

Response 2:

Regarding Figure 2. We improved the text hoping to have given a clearer explanation.

 

In more detail, Figure 3 highlights in red 19 papers using a multiple case studies approach, from which 13 articles focused on different case studies located in the same country, 5 papers focused on multiple case studies located in two different countries and one paper addressed six case studies targeting six different European countries. The rest of the 15 papers, as mentioned above, focused on a single case study, each covering a single country.

 

We hope it is clear now.

 

Point 3:

There is at least one occasion where the authors use AFN(s) instead of the usual AFNs. The authors should strive for better consistency in writing.

 

Response 3:

We checked all the text and corrected all these kinds of errors.

 

Thank you for your commitment,

 

Best regards,

Francesca Gori

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Author/s,

thanks for choosing Sustainability as Journal for your research. The article with ID 2360315 entitled “Alternative food networks and short food supply chains: a systematic literature review based on a case study approach” is quite interesting.

In my opinion the paper, at this stage, can be improved to be published and it can be accepted with major revision. The revisions are related to the structure aspects and some to the content. Above my suggestions for your paper.

 

Firstly, literature and bibliography need to be improved. It is strongly suggested to discuss about the “Food” and “Supply chains”. The following references are strongly suggested to improve the “Introduction section”:

·     Perano, M., Cammarano, A., Varriale, V., Del Regno, C., Michelino, F. and Caputo, M. (2023). Embracing supply chain digitalization and unphysicalization to enhance supply chain performance: a conceptual framework. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 1-18. DOI: 10.1108/IJPDLM-06-2022-0201.

·     da Rocha Ramos, L. A., Zecca, F. and Del Regno, C. (2022). Needs of Sustainable Food Consumption in the Pandemic Era: First Results of Case Study. Sustainability, 14(16), 9852. DOI: 10.3390/su14169852.

·   Cillo, V., Gavinelli, L., Ceruti, F., Perano, M. and Solima, L. (2019). A sensory perspective in the Italian beer market. British Food Journal. DOI: 10.1108/BFJ-12-2018-0818.

Secondly, “Materials and Methods” section should be improved. In the table 1 is not very clear why the string obtained from the Scopus database is different from the string obtained from the WoS database?. In particular, the "English" filter is not present in the Scopus string but both Databases propose 103 articles.

Thirdly, both theoretical and practical implications, and future research should be improved in the final part of the last section and the limitation better described and improved.

 Good luck with your interesting paper.

There are some typos, grammar and formatting errors present in the current version of the manuscript (i.e. p. 1 line 45 there are two ]]; p. 2 line 48: the sentence not have the punctuation at the end; etc...). Also the language can be improved in scientific sound. For this reason, a professional proofread is required to improve the manuscript.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments and feedback. We appreciate them in order to improve the quality of our work. Thank you for taking the time to review. We have carefully considered the comments and bibliographic suggestions, and have done our best to respond to what you highlighted. We hope that the manuscript, after careful review, will meet your standards.

 

Below are the point-by-point comments.

Please see the attachment with also the word version.

 

Point 1: Firstly, literature and bibliography need to be improved. It is strongly suggested to discuss about the “Food” and “Supply chains”. The following references are strongly suggested to improve the “Introduction section”:

•    Perano, M., Cammarano, A., Varriale, V., Del Regno, C., Michelino, F. and Caputo, M. (2023). Embracing supply chain digitalization and unphysicalization to enhance supply chain performance: a conceptual framework. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 1-18. DOI: 10.1108/IJPDLM-06-2022-0201.
• da Rocha Ramos, L. A., Zecca, F. and Del Regno, C. (2022). Needs of Sustainable Food Consumption in the Pandemic Era: First Results of Case Study. Sustainability, 14(16), 9852. DOI: 10.3390/su14169852.
• Cillo, V., Gavinelli, L., Ceruti, F., Perano, M. and Solima, L. (2019). A sensory perspective in the Italian beer market. British Food Journal. DOI: 10.1108/BFJ-12-2018-0818.

 

Response 1:

We have improved the introduction section according to your suggestions by introducing the context in which AFNs and short supply chain experiences have emerged in recent years. We deepened the concept of food supply chain by differentiating long and short supply chain. We read the literature you suggested. We found very useful the articles: Rocha Ramos, L. A., Zecca, F. and Del Regno, C. (2022). Sustainable food consumption needs in the era of pandemics: Initial findings from a case study. Sustainability, 14(16), 9852. DOI: 10.3390/su14169852. This reference helped us to understand what concepts and elements we needed to introduce in the intrediction section. Regarding the other two articles suggest, it was not clear to us how we could use them in our article, because they do not fit our topic and do not use the PRISMA systematic review method. We hope we have improved the introduction according to your requests. Finally we improved the bibliography by adding 21 new references.

 

POINT 2: Secondly, “Materials and Methods” section should be improved. In the table 1 is not very clear why the string obtained from the Scopus database is different from the string obtained from the WoS database?. In particular, the "English" filter is not present in the Scopus string but both Databases propose 103 articles.

 

Response 2:

Regaridng Material and Methods we have provided and improved the section. We improved the explanation of the Prisma method and adding other important literatures. We have provided a better explanation of the developed review protocol, search strategy, inclusion process and exclusion criteria. To better clarify the section, we divided the section into subparagraph in order to highlight the different stages of the review.

 

Regarding the table.

Thank you for noticing this oversight. While copying and pasting the string on the document, we did not notice that the English filter was missing.  We updated the table by adding the English filter in the Scopus string.

 

Here is the updated string:

 

( TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "Alternative Food Network*"  OR  "Short food supply chain*" )  AND  TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "Case Stud*" ) )  AND 

( LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR ,  2021 )  OR  LIMIT-TO 

( PUBYEAR ,  2020 )  OR  LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR ,  2019 )  OR  LIMIT-TO  ( PUBYEAR ,  2018 )  OR  LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR ,  2017 ) 

OR  LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR ,  2016 )  OR  LIMIT-TO 

( PUBYEAR ,  2015 )  OR  LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR ,  2014 )  ) AND  ( LIMIT-TO ( DOCTYPE ,  "ar" ) ) AND  ( LIMIT-TO ( LANGUAGE ,  "English" ) )

 

As for the other differences you mentioned, they are related to the two different ways of writing a string required by the two different databases. For example, if TS= appears in Web of Science and Ttitle-ABS-Key in Scopus, these are two different ways of writing strings according to the requirements of the database, but the content and meaning are the same.

 

 

Point 3: Thirdly, both theoretical and practical implications, and future research should be improved in the final part of the last section and the limitation better described and improved.

 

Response 3:

In this section we have focused on the limitations and future research in order to improve them. I hope they are now consistent with your requests.

With regard to limitations, we have added as an additional limitation the exclusion of all unscientific literature and the use of case studies approach as an additional exclusion element of important literature.

 

As regards future research, we have introduced an important point on ecosystem services and how future research should focus, considering appropriate methodological techniques, on the assessment of ecosystem services, on what and how different forms of AFN provide ecosystem services.

 

Point 4: “There are some typos, grammar and formatting errors present in the current version of the manuscript (i.e. p. 1 line 45 there are two ]]; p. 2 line 48: the sentence not have the punctuation at the end; etc...). Also the language can be improved in scientific sound. For this reason, a professional proofread is required to improve the manuscript.

 

Response 4:

We have corrected all the errors present, and a more thorough review of the article to improve the English language.

 

We hope that our manuscript encounters your careful revisions; the authors welcome further constructive remarks, if any.

 

Best regards,

 

Francesca Gori

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic of the paper is relevant for the journal and I suggest that the paper be accepted after minor corrections. In addition, I need the authors to answer a couple of questions. All suggestions and questions are listed below.

Line 38 – double bracket, comma.

Line 45 double parenthesis.

Line 48 - add a full stop to the end of the sentence.

Line 82 - add a full stop to the end of the sentence.

Figure 1 - I think it would be useful to connect the left and right sides of the figure with arrows (the output from the left side of the figure is the input to the right, so it is then the input to the left).

Line 113 - behind 5) second topic – add ;

Line 147 – align the numbering of the pictures in the text and in their title (Figure 2 and Figure 1).

Line 154 - please check sum: out of 34 articles (15+17=?).

Line 156 – please add a full stop after [43], delete before.

Figure 2 - the right part of the picture is not clear to me - out of the 34 papers you analyze, you mark off 19 according to targeted counties, what about other papers? Again, match the numbering of the figure in the text and in the title.

Line 164 - Match the numbering of the figure in the text with the figure (this applies to all figures in the paper).

Line 177 - ... middle-class. [56, 64, 65]) – please add a full stop at the end of the sentence, delete the double bracket.

Figure 5 – I think it would be better to add color legend for frequency.

Line 206 - ...motives [36, 39, 68]This review ... – add a full stop at the end of the sentence and a space.

Line 386 - ... producers ([31]). – delete double brackets.

Lines 414, 443, 444, 470 – please add space between words and brackets.

Line 440 - please explain how you got 49%?

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

Dear review, thank you for your comments and feedback. We really appreciated  this in-depth revision. It was very important for us to improve the quality of our articles.

 

Please see the attachment with the PDF version.

 

Below there are the point-by-point comments.

POIN 1:

Line 38 – double bracket, comma.

Line 45 double parenthesis.

Line 48 - add a full stop to the end of the sentence.

Line 82 - add a full stop to the end of the sentence.

Line 113 - behind 5) second topic – add ;

Line 147 – align the numbering of the pictures in the text and in their title (Figure 2 and Figure 1).

Line 156 – please add a full stop after [43], delete before.

Line 164 - Match the numbering of the figure in the text with the figure (this applies to all figures in the paper).

Line 177 - ... middle-class. [56, 64, 65]) – please add a full stop at the end of the sentence, delete the double bracket.

Figure 5 – I think it would be better to add color legend for frequency.

Line 206 - ...motives [36, 39, 68]This review ... – add a full stop at the end of the sentence and a space.

Line 386 - ... producers ([31]). – delete double brackets.

Lines 414, 443, 444, 470 – please add space between words and brackets.

Response 1.

We have corrected all the errors in all the lines you showed. And the same for the table number and figure

 

Point 2: Figure 1 - I think it would be useful to connect the left and right sides of the figure with arrows (the output from the left side of the figure is the input to the right, so it is then the input to the left).

 

Response 2: When the figure was pasted into the article, the arrows did not stick. Now we have connected the right side of the figure with the left side with arrows.

Point 3. Figure 2 - the right part of the picture is not clear to me - out of the 34 papers you analyze, you mark off 19 according to targeted counties, what about other papers? Again, match the numbering of the figure in the text and in the title.

Response 3.

We improved the text hoping to have given a clearer explanation.

 

In more detail, Figure 3 highlights in red 19 papers using a multiple case studies approach, from which 13 articles focused on different case studies located in the same country, 5 papers focused on multiple case studies located in two different countries and one paper addressed six case studies targeting six different European countries. The rest of the 15 papers, as mentioned above, focused on a single case study, each covering a single country.

 

We hope that now the explanation is clearer

Point 4: Line 440 - please explain how you got 49%?

Response 4:

I entered the numbers to get the percentage 44% in the parentheses. The correct number was 44 (15\34).

In the text we have specified like this: 44% of the selected articles (15 out of 34) use a single case study approach, while 56% use a multiple case study approach.

Point 5: Line 154 - please check sum: out of 34 articles (15+17=?).

Response 5:

Please find my changes that improve and clarify this point.

Regarding lines 153-154 (in the new version they correspond to lines 226-227) the correct number is 19. We got confused with the number and I thank you for pointing it out. The same goes for lines 162-163 (in the new version they correspond to lines 235). Again, the correct number is still 19.

 

Thank you for your careful revision;

 

Best regards,

Francesca Gori

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf