Redesigning short food supply chains for sustainable livelihoods and economies worldwide: a review of contributions from the British Food Journal

Purpose: Short food supply chains (SFSCs) have been extensively researched for their environmental and economic implications. However, these are now confronted with shortcomings such as supply chain resilience (SLR) and societal livelihood (SL) hindering growth. The purpose of this study is to revisit and critically analyze existing SFSC literature, with a focus on SLR, SL, sustainability and human-centricity elements, to propose redesigning attributes for SFSCs in the era of Industry 5.0. Design/methodology/approach: The systematic review scope is confined to the SFSC domain with an analysis of contemporary articles published in the British Food Journal (BFJ). The meta-data and research papers are sourced from the Scopus database and the VOSviewer software is used for the analysis. The thematic, diversified geographies and method-wise investigation bring theoretical insights toward building sustainable and resilient SFSCs. Findings: The study findings could serve as a fitting theoretical framework to redesign the SFSCs for resiliency, sustainability and societal aspects of the economy, environment and human livelihood, respectively. The results also discuss the prior accomplishments and elaborate on avenues for future research. Research limitations/implications: Emphasizing recent trends, challenges, policy design, conceptual framework and future research directions for the SFSC domain, considering SLR and SL, has extended the literature in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Practical implications: This study offers comprehensive guidelines to the concerned stakeholders for redesigning the SFSCs by linking sustainability, resilience and societal livelihood dimensions. Originality/value: The study derives comprehensive insights into how redesigning SFSCs has contributed to more sustainable and resilient food systems worldwide over 2 decades. It extends the BFJ’s literature body by establishing the linkages between SLR and SL concerning human-centric SFSC.