Management of Postharvest Losses and Wastages in the Indian Tomato Supply Chain—A Temperature-Controlled Storage Perspective

Tomatoes are an extensively cultivated and consumed horticulture product in India. Horticulture produce undergoes a series of operations such as harvesting, storage, packaging, loading, unloading, transportation before reaching the end customer food supply chain (FSC). Any inefficiencies these cause postharvest losses (PHL) affect whole FSC. However, focus existing studies has been more on improving productivity than addressing PHL. Several technologies, cold storage evaporative cooling, available to address PHL, but hardly any technology implemented Indian Hence, need identify adoption barriers perform feasibility analysis technologies. This study addresses this gap by first identifying effect PHL tomato FSC, exploring different technologies challenges implementing those finally proposing feasible option manage The case approach was followed for collection relevant data. findings show several reasons across stages including reduced shelf life due improper long-distance transport. Based temperature-controlled facilities collaboration among FSC partners suggested best possible solutions problem