ASSESSING MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR INTERMEDIATED REGIONAL FOOD SUPPLY NETWORKS.

Consumers are increasingly seeking fresh and healthy food that has been sustainably produced by regional farmers. However, most consumers also value convenience and efficiency and prefer to purchase food from retailers and restaurants, rather than farmers' markets. Likewise, many farmers would rather focus their time and efforts on food production, leaving logistics and marketing to others. Regional food hubs can bridge this gap by providing aggregation, warehousing, transportation, and marketing services for these farmers, enabling them to reach larger markets through sales to wholesale and retail customers. These services can be invaluable to small and midsized farmers, who often cannot perform such activities cost-effectively. However, once food hub managers have helped to establish connections between farmers and customers, they often find themselves cut out of the regional food supply network when the farmers decide to sell their products directly to the customers, thereby avoiding the food hub's service fees. While this can have short-term financial benefits for the farmers, widespread disintermediation can eventually lead to food hub failure, which can disrupt the entire regional food system. To avoid this, food hub managers must develop and implement policies that will support long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with their suppliers and customers. This paper describes an agent-based model of an intermediated regional food supply network in Iowa. The model is designed to serve as a decision support tool for food hub managers, allowing them to simulate the effects of various supply chain management strategies on long-term organizational and system success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]