Sustainable innovation in the dairy supply chain: enabling factors for intermodal transportation

There is a need for the dairy supply chain to improve its environmental performance. Intermodal rail-road transportation can be a way to reduce CO₂ emissions. However, despite technological innovations in the realm of cooling technology, which could enable a shift to intermodal transportation, the use of intermodal rail-road in the dairy supply chain is still low. A blueprint is needed to foster the application of intermodal transportation in the sector. Literature provides little guidance in this sense. Therefore, this paper investigates how to ease the shift to intermodal rail-road transportation in the dairy supply chain through multiple case studies, performed at different stages of the supply chain. A set of enablers of the shift is discussed, along with a blueprint for innovative technology, and logistics and business models. The plan takes into account all the actors of the dairy industry, as well as other players, i.e. technology providers, academia and institutions. This paper enriches literature, thanks to its multi-stage research, providing managers with a practical tool to support the shift to intermodal transportation in the dairy industry. The main limitations lay in the choice of the sample, i.e. only Italian companies and no small retailers and farmers have been involved.