Performance assessment of food value chains: A way to identifying the responses in terms of policy interventions

In the context of growing consumers’ awareness about the impact of food products on the environment, their health or on social aspects, a careful analysis needs to be conducted to compare the sustainability performance of local and global food value chains. Indeed, a critical analysis of local food chains’ performance in comparison with more global ones will help to objectively assess the real benefits and drawbacks of local and global food chains. In this paper, a comparison of a local and a global milk supply chain is presented. The assessment of their sustainability was realized with a set of attributes and indicators around five sustainability dimensions (economic, social, environmental, health and ethical). Scores of performance are measured for each chain in each of the indicators and results show that the local chain performs better in 40% of the indicators and performs equivalently to the global chain in 40% of the indicators. The higher performance of the local chain is especially striking in the health and social dimensions. It was possible to identify that inputs procurement and the capability of chain’s actors to create and share added value are two main factors of performance and very important regarding policy interventions targeting value chains sustainability.