ACHARYULU et al.
/ (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Factors Contributing to Perishability in Traditional
Fresh Produce Distribution System: A Study on
Tomato and Banana Chains in Andhra Pradesh, India
ACHARYULU G.V.R.K
Assistant Professor
School of Management Studies,
University of Hyderabad,
Hyderabad, India
acharyu_gvrk@yahoo.com
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Abstract— The present study is aimed to identify the various
factors that contribute to the perishability of fresh produce
which are caused during logistic operations in fresh produce
distribution. These activities are mostly human and facility
oriented and gives a scope for damage to fresh produce. The
activities taken for the study are purely concern with the
logistic and supply chain related. The study examined the
banana and tomato chains which are more susceptible to the
spoilage in distribution operations The study reveals most
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contributing factors to perishability using regression model so
that the spoilage of fresh produce can be minimized using
appropriate mechanism and hence the overall supply chain is
strengthened.
Keywords- Perishability, Supply chain, Fresh Produce,
Regression
I. INTRODUCTION
India is continued to be the world‘s second largest producer
of fresh produce in last five year. It produced 68.4 million
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tonnes of fruits and 129 million tonnes of vegetables in the
year 2008-09 [1] National horticulture mission statistics
forecasts annual production growth is at 8.8 percent for fruits
and 10.9 percent for vegetables by 2015. A total consumption
of 90 million tonnes of fresh produce is supplied through 7300
wholesale assembly markets and 27294 rural weekly
markets[2]. The consumption of fresh produce is expected to
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reach 140 million tonnes by 2015 [3]. The research revealed
that the fresh produce accounts for 50 per cent of the food and
grocery bill [4]. It indicates there is an enormous growth
opportunity in fresh produce sector. India can become market
leader in world horticultural produce through the vertical and
horizontal integration of different components of the supply
chain.
The major issue in the supply chain is the inefficient post-
harvest management. Cultivable waste of about 24 to 40 per
cent is reported due to the inefficiency and the extent of losses
of fruits and vegetables in India is estimated at about Rs.
ISSN: 2230-7826 @ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.
Vol No. 1, Issue No. 1, 001 - 005
SUDHAKAR MADHAVEDI
Doctoral Research Scholar
School of Management Studies,
University of Hyderabad,
Hyderabad, India
reachfirst@gmail.com
10,000 crore to 12,000 crore per annum [5]. Approximately 20
per cent of India's fruit and vegetable produce goes waste on
account of the lack of cold chains. India has around 1,300 cold
storage facilities, of which 50 per cent are being used for
potatoes and the rest remain underutilized (CII, 2007).
II. SPOILAGE OF FRESH PRODUCE
The fruits, vegetables and root crops are still alive after the
harvesting process. They contain 65 to 95 percent water,
depending on the type of produce. They also contain food
materials which enable living processes to continue. As soon
as produce is harvested the processes leading to breakdown
begin, and cannot then be stopped. The rate at which
breakdown occurs can, however, be slowed up and losses
minimized by employing the correct handling methods after
harvest. Most fresh produce is highly perishable and if it is to
reach the consumer in the right condition it must be marketed
properly bearing in mind the most suitable temperature and
humidity for each commodity as well as appropriate
packaging and handling methods. Failure to address these
issues leads to stress to the produce rapidly followed by
spoilage and losses. The enormous losses of fruits and
vegetables produced in the country are mainly because of the
lack of proper infrastructure for storage and transportation
under controlled conditions.
Effect of Injuries: Injuries take many forms, including cuts,
punctures, scraping of outer surfaces, internal and surface
bruising, sunburn, heat damage and cold damage. Their effect
on harvested produce is to speed up the rate at which water is
lost by as much as five times, to provide sites for attack by
decay agents such as moulds and bacteria, to increase the rate
of heat production at injury sites, to cause dis-colouration due
to internal damage and to cause off-flavours to develop.
Effect of Pests and Disease: Increase in post-harvest decay
occurs where produce is washed before packing. Most moulds
and bacteria causing decay require free water to establish
infection, particularly where injuries, even though small, are
present on washed produce and the washing water is stagnant
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or recycled. It may also be a problem where condensation
occurs on the surface of produce when it is moved from cold
stores to high ambient temperatures, or when produce is
exposed to rain after harvest.
Produce saturated with water, from rain or other causes
may become 'soft' and more easily damaged than when dry.
This damage not only provides opportunity for infection by
decay agents but may in itself leave unsightly surface damage,
leading to down-grading and lower prices. This is often seen
in citrus fruits, where fruit harvested when wet develop the
skin blemish. It may not always be possible to keep produce
dry but field-men should avoid harvesting freshly wet
produce.
III. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
The present study is aimed to identify the various factors
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that contribute to the perishability of fresh produce which are
caused during logistic operations in fresh produce distribution.
These activities are mostly human and material oriented and
gives a scope for damage to fresh produce. However many
other factors contributes to the perishability of fresh produce,
the existing activities taken for the study are purely concern
with the logistic and supply chain related. The study reveals
most contributing factors to perishability using regression
model so that the spoilage of fresh produce can be minimized
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using appropriate mechanism and hence the overall supply
chain is strengthened.
IV. METHODOLOGY
This study is causal in nature and relies on survey method.
Andhra Pradesh is chosen for this purpose based on the
contribution its share in terms of production and growing area
to the national agriculture sector in last ten years and it is also
one among the top five produces of banana and tomato states
in the country. The study examined the banana and tomato
chains which are more susceptible to the spoilage in
distribution operations. The study is conducted in three
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districts for each produce namely, Krishna, Chittoor and
Ranga Reddy for tomato and East Godavari, West Godavari
and Chittoor for banana. These districts are selected on the
basis of Area and production of tomato and banana during
1999- 2009. A total sample size of 305 farmers, 62 traders
and 120 retailers are drawn from the population.
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Different questionnaires are designed for data collection
from the target respondents such as farmers, traders and
retailers to obtain views and level of agreement on the factors
pertaining to fresh produce spoilage during the supply chain
operations on Likert‘s five-point scale. The data is collected
from the AMCs that are located in the selected districts where
the respondents participate in the fresh produce distribution
activity.
The table 4 provide a full of information about the model.
In which we find the slope (or slopes, in multiple regressions).
The values of Constant and Predictors are listed as
ISSN: 2230-7826 @ 2011 http://www.ijaebm.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.
Vol No. 1, Issue No. 1, 001 - 005
‗unstandardized‘ values, and their standard errors (Std. Error)
and SE (Beta) are in the second column. The standardized
coefficient for the predictor in a multiple regression is simple
the correlation. Since neither of the predictor variables has a
variance inflation factor (VIF) greater than 10 (All VIFs are
less than 2), there are no apparent multi-collinearity problems;
in other words, there is no variable in the model that is
measuring the same relationship/quantity as is measured by
another variable or group of variables. From the table 4, the
multiple-regression model is depicted as:
V. DESCRIPTION OF VARIABLES
Perishability (y): Perishable products are those that worsen
in quality over time, and become lesser in value. Perish able
goods decay rapidly, if preservation and pre-cautionary
technique is not employed. Common perishable goods include
foods, plants and agricultural products. Fruits and vegetables
are examples of time and temperature-sensitive perishable
products that can rot or spoil easily. Perishable products must
be handled and transported by highly efficient distribution
channels that can retain the integrity of the produce.
Perishability (Y) = f{X1,X2,X3…X9}
Independent variables (x1 to x9): Perishability of the fresh
produce will influence with the operational variables such as
care during transportation, use of plastic crates, removal of
foreign bodies, condition of road, safety packaging, cleaning
and washing, and foreign bodies.
1. X1- Damaged during the harvest by the farm men
(PR_farm_men).
2. X2 - Road conditions causes the physical damage to the
fresh produce (PR_physical_damage),
3. X3 - Lack of effective packaging (PR_lack_packaging),
4. X4- Non saperation of living organism like Bacteria,
Fungus, insects etc. (PR_living_organism),
5. X5- Non-removal of foreign bodies causes perishability
(PR_foreign_bodies),
6. X6 - Lack of plastic crates during the transportation
(PR_plastic_crates),
7. X7- Lack of cleaning and Washing (PR_washing),
8. X8 - Lack of enough care while the loading and loading
(PR_care_load_unload),
9. X9 - Lack of effective care during road transport
(PR_packing_perishability),
Prior to the carrying out of regression model, the
Pearson‘s correlation statistic has been run to determine the
variability among the independent variables. The following
correlation matrix table (Table 1) has been generated. The
Pearson correlation co-efficient indicates that there is no
incidence of strong correlation exists positively with the
coefficient value ranging from 0.6 to 1.0 among independent
variables. It indicates that there is no multi-collinearity among
the variables. Consequently, a multivariate statistical
technique, multiple regression method is applied to analyze
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 ACHARYULU et al. / (IJAEBM) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
the data. The enter method is adopted for the running of
Regression model. From multiple regression analysis it is
observed that Eigen values in the multi-colinearity diagnostic
matrix found to be more than 1.0 for all the variables hence no
independent variable is dropped from the multiple regression
model.
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The model summary table indicates what predictors are
relevant for the R and R2. The word ―co nstant‖ in parentheses
refers to the intercept. The coefficient of multiple
determinations is 0.883; therefore, about 78 percent of the
variation in the perishability is explained by its quadratic
relationship with the predictors which cause perishability. The
regression equation appears to be very useful for making
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predictions since the value of R2 is close to 1. From the table
2, Durbin–Watson value of 1.841 indicates there is no
autocorrelation among the independent variables.
Table 2: Model Summeryb
Std. Error
Mode R Adjusted Durbin-
R of the
l Square R Square Watson
Estimate
1 .773a .659 .635 .286 2.058
a. Predictors: (Constant), PR_packing_perishability,
PR_lack_packaging, PR_farm_men, PR_plastic_crates,
PR_care_load_unload, PR_physical_damage,
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PR_living_organism, PR_foreign_bodies, PR_washing
b. Dependent Variable: Perishability
The table 3 below shows the ―A NOVA table‖ for the
regression. ANOVA stands for Analysis Of Variance
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specifically the analysis of variation in the Y scores. At this
point we observe the two sums of squares introduced in class
the regression and residual (or error) sums of squares. The
variance of the residuals (or errors) is the value of the mean
square error —here it is .085. Also in this table we find the F
test. This tests the hypothesis that the predictor (here our only
predictor) shows no relationship to Y. The F test has two
numbers for its degrees of freedom. These are called the
numerator and denominator degrees of freedom of df1 and df2.
Here the numerator df (df1) tells us how many predictors we
have (it is 9) and the denominator degrees of freedom are n -
1- df1 or n-2 for bivariate regression. The table provides us
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Vol No. 1, Issue No. 1, 001 - 005
with the data that need to compute R2. If we compute SS-
regression divided by SS-Total, we should get R2.
SS (Sum of the squares)-regression / SS (Sum of the squares)-
Total = 88.745/ 113.751 = .780
Table 3: ANOVAb
Sum of Mean
Model Squares df Square F Sig.
1 Regression 6.337 9 .704 8.595 .000a
Residual 4.260 52 .082
Total 10.597 61
a. Predictors: (Constant), PR_packing_perishability,
PR_lack_packaging, PR_farm_men, PR_plastic_crates,
PR_care_load_unload, PR_physical_damage,
PR_living_organism, PR_foreign_bodies, PR_washing
b. Dependent Variable: Perishability
The table 4 provide a full of information about the model.
In which we find the slope (or slopes, in multiple regressions).
The values of Constant and Predictors are listed as
‗unstandardized‘ values, and their standard errors (Std. Error)
and SE (Beta) are in the second column. The standardized
coefficient for the predictor in a multiple regression is simple
the correlation. Since neither of the predictor variables has a
variance inflation factor (VIF) greater than 10 (All VIFs are
less than 2), there are no apparent multi-collinearity problems;
in other words, there is no variable in the model that is
measuring the same relationship/quantity as is measured by
another variable or group of variables. From the table 4, the
multiple-regression model is depicted as:
y = .473 + 0.136 x1 + 0.054 x2 + 0.100 x3 + 0.122 x4 + 0.055
x5 + 0.141 x6 + 0.118 x7 + 0.046 x8+ 0.073 x9
It is clear that Road conditions causes the physical damage
to the fresh produce (PR_physical_damage), Non-removal of
foreign bodies causes perishability (PR_foreign_bodies), Lack
of enough care is not taken while the loading and loading
(PR_care_load_unload) and Lack of effective care during road
transport (PR_packing_perishability) are showing
insignificant effect on the perishability of the fresh produce as
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their probability value are higher than the acceptable limit of
0.05.
It is concluded that from the table 4, which indicates the
significant values of predictors that affect the dependent
variable. It is found that Damaged during the harvest by the
farm men (PR_farm_men), Lack of effective packaging
(PR_lack_packaging), Non saperation of living organism like
Bacteria, Fungus, insects etc. (PR_living_organism), Lack of
plastic crates during the transportation (PR_plastic_crates),
and Lack of cleaning and Washing (PR_washing) variables
falls under the impacting as their probability values .001, .008,
.001, .000 and .010 respectively
Avoid Post-Harvest Losses at Traders/Wholesalers:
VI. OTHER OBSERVATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
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Handling and Storage during Transportation: Dropping of
packages during loading and unloading is a frequent cause of
damage to the produce and to the package, but can be
minimized by:
 Using pack weights and designs which are
compatible with the handling method.
 Correct supervision and management of loading and
unloading to prevent careless handling and to ensure
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workers are strong enough and tall enough for the
Job.
 Using ramped loading bays gives a tremendous
advantage when loading trucks with produce.
 Providing shelter from sun and rain at loading and
unloading areas.
 Using trolleys, conveyors and fork-lift trucks to
reduce the amount of manual handling.
Avoiding Injuries: The fragile nature of most fruit and
vegetables products makes them very susceptible to injury,
and the complete avoidance of such injury is not possible.
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However, damage may be reduced to a minimum by giving
attention to:
a. Care in harvesting, especially with tree fruit, which
are severely damaged if they fall or are thrown to the
ground.
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b. Being careful not to harvest wet produce, especially
citrus fruit - because it is more easily damaged in this
condition.
c. The selection of suitable field and marketing
containers, which should not be too large for careful
handling. They should be strong enough to protect
produce but should not cause damage to produce due
to sharp edges, poor manufacture or assembly.
d. The avoidance of overpacking or underpacking
containers, which should be filled to an extent that
will exert a slight pressure on the contents when
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Vol No. 1, Issue No. 1, 001 - 005
closed. This will prevent movement of produce
within the container.
e. The careful handling of produce at all stages,
especially when in containers, which must not be
rolled, dropped or thrown.
f. Transport conditions. Loads should be stacked in a
manner which will prevent either the movement of
individual containers or the collapse of the stack
during transport. Riders should not be permitted on
top of the load, especially when it consists of produce
in bulk or in sacks. Vehicles should have a canopy to
protect the load from the direct heat of the sun, but it
should not restrict ventilation.
a. Wholesalers handle produce which may or may not
have been freshly harvested and may be packaged in
various types of container. Depending on how well
the farmer and transporter have done their job, the
wholesaler must decide on the most appropriate sale
and distribution system so that the produce can reach
the consumer in the best possible condition.
b. Above all, the wholesaler must strive to keep post-
harvest losses at a minimum or he will have to raise
the selling price to counter the losses or bear the
financial loss directly himself. Wholesalers in the
Andhra Pradesh rarely have specialized storage
facilities other than an ordinary warehouse and it is
recommended that they concentrate their activities on
selling and moving the produce as quickly and
carefully as possible in order to avoid losses from
spoilage of all kinds.
c. The general principles of keeping produce cool by
stacking it in well shaded and ventilated locations
and avoiding exposure to sun and rain at all times are
the most important things to remember. Whenever
the produce is handled it should be done so carefully
and cleanly so as not to inflict cuts and bruises. If the
produce is purchased from the farmer in bulk, or 'off
the tree', then suitable packaging should be invested
in so that multiple handling steps can be avoided and
the produce protected from compression and other
injuries.
d. The best way to avoid post-harvest losses is to only
buy good quality produce in the first place and to
regularly inspect the produce for spoilage if sale is
delayed. Re-grading and repacking of produce may
be permissible but this will depend on the cost of the
process and the value added as a result. Wholesalers
are in the business to make money, not as charitable
suppliers of fresh produce. All staff employed by the
wholesaler should be trained in the basic causes of
post-harvest losses and recieve demonstration type
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Vol No. 1, Issue No. 1, 001 - 005

training on the importance of careful handling and

stowing of fresh produce in preventing such losses.

Avoid Post-Harvest Losses at Retailers‘ Level:

a. In the first place, the retailer should be aware of the

importance of post-harvest losses and their effect on
profits, as well as understanding the basic causes of
post-harvest losses and what can and cannot be done
to prevent them. The principal concern to the retailer
will be the cost of any loss prevention programme
and its effectiveness rather than any desire to prevent
losses just for the sake of it.

Reduction of post-harvest losses requires an investment in

time, planning, management and possibly capital equipment.
The level of investment will thus largely be governed by the

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nature of the retailer and the volumes of fresh produce sold

VII. CONCLUSION
The proper integration of post-harvest technology into
marketing supply-chain is critical. Post-harvest management
not only means reducing waste but also maintaining the
quality but also aim to address some of these issues by
optimizing quality, safety and by reducing waste. Effective
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post-harvest management requires adequate and appropriate
cooling and packing facilities, hygienic and speedy
transportation, careful handling and adequate environment
control. This includes aspects such as appropriate temperature,
relative humidity, ventilation and sanitation. Difference in
prices between the farmer and the retailer is highest in India
when compared with other countries.

REFERENCES
[1] Indian Horticulture Database. National Horticultural Board.
Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, 2009
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[2] Acharya, S.S. Agriculture marketing and rural credit: Status,
Issues and reform agenda, ‗Area, Production and Yield of
Principal Crops in India‘, Directorate of Economics and
Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, 2005.
[3] Kumar, Praduman and Promod Kumar Demand, Supply and
Trade Perspective of Vegetables and Fruits in India,‖ Indian
Journal of Agricultural Marketing, Vol 17(3), pp: 121-130,
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2003.
[4] Kumar, P. and Donato B. Antiporta. ― Expenditure and price
elasticities of food and non-food consumption by income
groups: region-wise analysis of India‖. Working Paper.
FAO/RAPP. Bangkok, 2001.
[5] Surabhi Mittal. ― Can horticulture be a success story for India?‖
Indian Council for Research on International Economic
Relations, 2007.

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