Two-echelon fresh product supply chain with different transportation modes

The fresh product supply chain suffers from the quantity loss and quality loss due to its perishability in long-distance transportation, which affect the health of customers and the sustainable development of supply chain. Using low-cost normal temperature transportation or high-cost cold chain transportation has become a problem for transportation enterprises. This paper aims to investigate the impact of different transportation modes on the supply chain performance. The operation strategies of the supply chain are analyzed under three situations: no coordination contract, wholesale price contract, and revenue-sharing contract. Taking Zhanhua winter jujube as an example, the correctness of theoretical analysis is verified. The main findings are as follows. Supply chain participants, including consumers, can benefit from cold chain transportation. That the cost of cold chain transportation is below the threshold is the basic condition to use cold chain transportation. The retailer has the incentive to encourage the supplier to use cold chain transportation by increasing the wholesale price, but the wholesale price should be set within a certain range. The supplier has the incentive to use cold chain transportation under the revenue-sharing contract, but the revenue-sharing proportion needs to be within a certain range to ensure the retailer's profit. The revenue-sharing contract is superior to the wholesale price contract, and wholesale price contract is superior to no coordination contract.