Application of bread supply chain framework to explain risk management strategies of bread production and consumption in Khuzestan province

Despite of food production increase over the past half-century, food security has a strategic issue and an important goal of agricultural policies in many countries.The bread supply chain is critical because of its important role in food security. Bread is one of the most important items in the household food basket. A bread supply chain starts from wheat production and ends to household table. But despite of high consumption and three thousand year past actives of grain cultivation, flour production and bread making in Iran, but, the quality of bread is at the lowest level of the world standard. This is due to the risks that the bread supply chain has been damaged. The aim of this study was to application of bread supply chain framework to explain risk management strategies of bread production and consumption in Khuzestan province.

The risks of the bread production and consumption identified and classified based on observation, interviewing and literature review tools. Then, risk management solutions identified and rated with focal group technique in six steps including of planning for the focus group, identifying the group composition, conducting the participants to get the answers to the questions, recording the participants' responses to the questions, data analysis and reporting the findings, by managers and experts of bread and flour field and consumers. The research tools was semi-structured and structured interview and checklist. The research community was the managers and experts in the field of bread, flour and consumers in Khuzestan province that revelatory cases sampling was used for selection of the people. The number of participants per focus group of bread production and consumption was 10 participants. Two focus group separately held with participants of per part that session lasted for 60 minutes.

The results of the research showed that in the bread production sector, the solutions presented in relation to the inputs supply risk, baking process risk and product health risk with a score of 73.33, 63.18 and 61.25 respectively and in the bread consumption sector, the proposed solutions regarding product quality risk, product purchase risk and information risk with a score of 88.83, 62.5 and 60 are the highest percentage in adjusting these risks. So, these should be placed at the top of the attention of officials in order to improve the quality of bread in Khuzestan province.

Considering that in the previous studies in this field has been investigated a quantitative paradigm, this research explain this subject with focus group and the use of expertise and experience of the experts in qualitative research. So, as viewed by experts supply of high quality and health flour, removing of soda and salt in the bread, completing of baking bread process, observing the consumption of water, salt in baking bread, improving the quality of bread, buying bread daily and the amount of consumed, inform people about the dangers of baking soda and high salt in the breads and consuming more whole grains are important solutions of bread production and consumption risk management. Therefore, the problem of flour quality solved by using of systematic thinking and smooth quality flour has been delivered to the bakers. Also, continuous monitoring and control of bakery, continuous applied research to improve bread quality and the implementation of legal regulations on the removal of juice and salt control intensified.