Abstract:

In recent years， with the improvement of living standards， consumers are increasingly requiring the quality of fresh agricultural products. Fresh agricultural products have the characteristics of short shelf life and easy corruption. At present， the supply chain management system of fresh agricultural products is not perfect， and the freshness-keeping consciousness and cooperation consciousness of each member are weak. Therefore， it is necessary to improve the freshness of agricultural products， reduce the quantity loss of products and increase the profit of the supply chain. It is necessary not only to invest in freshness-keeping efforts， but also to design reasonable and effective contracts to ensure the cooperation between supply chain members. In order to solve the above problems， the coordination and optimization strategy of a two-echelon fresh agricultural product supply chain are researched in this paper.Firstly， aimed at reducing the loss of quality and quantity of fresh agricultural products， the freshness-keeping effort is introduced to characterize the retailer’s freshness keeping work. The expected profit models of retailers and manufacturers under decentralized decision-making and centralized decision-making are constructed respectively， and the optimal decision-making problem of retailers is studied. It is concluded that the profit maximization of supply chain members cannot be realized under decentralized decision-making. Therefore， the option contract is introduced to coordinate the supply chain. Further， in order to encourage the manufacturer to accept the contract， a profit distribution contract is designed to realize the benefit sharing of both parties. Finally， the conclusions of the model are verified by numerical simulation， and the effects of the freshness-keeping effort， option price and exercise price on supply chain decision-making and coordination are analyzed.The results show that under different situations， the freshness-keeping effort has a critical value. When less than the critical value， the retailer's profit is proportional to the freshness-keeping effort. When more than the critical value， the retailer's profit is inversely proportional to the freshness-keeping effort. Under the option contract， compared with the decentralized decision-making， the retailer's optimal order quantity is increased， the optimal price is decreased， the retailer's profit is increased， the manufacturer's profit is decreased and the total profit is increased. Compared with the centralized decision-making， the retailer's optimal total order quantity， the optimal price and the total supply chain profit are increased. When the option price satisfies certain conditions， the total profit of the supply chain under the option contract is equal to the total profit under the centralized decision-making， then the perfect coordination of the supply chain is achieved.From the practical perspective， the combination of option and fresh agricultural products supply chain could better meet the needs of agricultural modernization and risk management. Option contract could better fill in gaps in other contracts， so that the manufacturer and the retailer cooperate more closely， which has practical guiding significance for the risk control of fresh product supply chain.

Key words: fresh product supply chain, freshness-keepingeffort, option contract, coordination