Multitiered Fresh Produce Supply Chain: The Case of Tomatoes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General:

The manuscript leaves the impression that data from the USDA is depicted. The scientific value of the manuscript and the contribution to the scientific community are not clear. What is the intention if the study? What is the research hypothesis?

Totally missing is discussion about shelf life, transport times, distribution times and so on. That would be very important. In Fig. 1: How long are tomatoes at these different stations.

How about retail prices between organic and non-organic tomatoes?

Fig. 3: Here cost distribution is required to get a better understanding of the average cost.  The reviewer has some doubt average costs are good indicators.

 

 

Abstract:

It is uncommon to use citations in the abstract. 1 to 2 sentences about methodology and main results should be added.

L. 11: ‘Highest values’ is not true. How about corn etc?

L. 14: Countries could be named.

L. 40: ‘rising production costs’ could be bit better explained and backed for example by wage cost.

L. 41: What ‘competitive advantages’?

 

Fig. 1: The reviewer does not know the US-supply chain, but is there no direct selling such as on weekly markets? What is also not clear: Is packaging etc. managed by the retailers or not. That is relevant for discussion about the integration.

 

L. 70: That should be more explained, and also specific labour costs be mentioned.

L. 59-70: Missing is an information about (as mentioned before) about tomato consumption per capita. That would be also interesting for exporting countries also their production volume over the years would be of value.

Fig. 2, 3, 5,7, 10, 11, 12: Single (measuring) points must be visible by a mark or sign.

Fig. 3: Use in every Figure the same y-axis scaling. Otherwise, the graphs are misleading.

 

L. 134: ‘that operates in ripening’. That could be better elaborated. What about shelf life can the delivery of tomatoes be regulated by ripening?

 

Fig. 4: Unclear what is shown. Percentage of farms?

 

L. 162-166: How much the ‘yield loss’ increased? Is ‘methyl bromide’ allowed in Mexico and Canada?

 

Table 4: wt.-%?

 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The issue raised by the authors is indeed an important one, and is interesting from both scientific and practical perspectives. Nevertheless, the authors could not reveal this topic. Nevertheless, the authors could not drop this topic. This work will not be interested in either researchers or practitioners.

This article has many disadvantages.

The abstract should introduce the reader to the research and hence state the research objective clearly, the methods used, some of the findings and some of the conclusions. There is none of this in the annotation.

The introduction does not contain a clear statement of the problem, the relevant literature on the subject, and a proposed approach or solution. The topicality and novelty of the research are not understood from the introduction.  It is necessary to bring the reader to the thought of the relevance of this study. The introduction lacks the purpose and objectives of the study.  There are no literature reviews and findings from other studies to point out the objective and importance of this study. The literature review refers to the central issue of the paper. Any peer-reviewed journal paper must have a certain level of literature reviews to justify the contribution of this paper. The authors should describe this.

The structure of the article does not meet the requirements of the publication (Research Manuscript Sections). There are no sections: Materials and Methods and Results. The discussion section should be highlighted separately. Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned.

The conclusion should contain actual results. and should be connected with the paper aim. There should several important scientific results having novelty, future and application in the considered context. Overall this section requires an in-depth rethink and much further consideration on the results found by the research.

Future research directions may also be mentioned.

The topic may be of interest to readers of journal. However, as it stands, the manuscript warrants substantial improvement before it can be considered for publication.

Based on the assumption that the article may be based on a large amount of work done by the author, the issue of its publication in the journal could be further considered after its significant revision (for example, restructuring, introduction, methods, discussion, qualitative conclusions, etc.). As presented, it is not possible to recommend the article in question for publication in the journal.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have no comments on current version. I think it is a paper to help the following researchers to understand the current status of tomatoes supply chain in USA.  However, the rigorous scientific method is insufficient. And I think the authors cannot overcome this weakness in a short time.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors! You have done a lot of work to correct my comments. The issue raised by the authors is indeed an important one, and is interesting from both scientific and practical perspectives. The structure of the article do meet the requirements of the publication (Research Manuscript Sections).

The introduction do contain a clear statement of the problem, the relevant literature on the subject, and a proposed approach or solution. The topicality and novelty of the research are understood from the introduction. The literature review refers to the central issue of the paper, it is quite extensive, relevant and thorough. The review will be of interest to other researchers. I would like to mention that the authors have comprehensively studied the literature on the issue published over the last five years. References are correct. The conclusion is consistent with presented arguments and evidence. The results complete previous results on the matter and are supported by references.

Nevertheless, as a recommendation for further research and writing articles. The authors are wider in your study use statistical and economy methods. This will allow better interpreting the result of the study and increase the interest of the audience.