Co-creation of business and marketing models for SMEs in short food supply chains in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland

Producers require physical infrastructure for transportation, refrigerated storage, aggregation, and processing, and these resources often cannot be afforded by small and medium-sized producers.

“Producers require physical infrastructure for transportation, refrigerated storage, aggregation, and processing, and these resources often cannot be afforded by small and medium-sized producers [11,34,36].”

Challenges to market access are particularly pronounced in post-socialist countries, where producers face limited scalability and access to markets.

“These and other challenges are particularly pronounced in post-socialist countries, where producers face limited scalability and access to markets [11].”

Large agricultural enterprises and vertically integrated processors retain advantages in logistics, contracting, and compliance with standards.

“Large agricultural enterprises and vertically integrated processors retain advantages in logistics, contracting, and compliance with standards [11,14,39].”

Post-socialist SFSCs are often characterized by limited cooperative structures and institutional support; however, collaborative arrangements have significant potential to help producers overcome barriers.

“Post-socialist SFSCs are often characterized by limited cooperative structures and institutional support [11]; however, collaborative arrangements have significant potential to help producers overcome barriers [2,27].”

While experience is important for successful engagement in SFSCs, it is insufficient to overcome the logistical and organizational barriers that are critical for supplying core markets.

“This suggests that while experience is important for successful engagement in SFSCs, it is insufficient to overcome the logistical and organizational barriers that are critical for supplying core markets [8,10,11].”

This finding may reflect another layer of structural constraints commonly identified in post-socialist contexts, stemming from the exhaustion of logistical and managerial capacities, additional handling and storage costs, and the dispersion of limited resources across multiple production and marketing activities.

“This finding may reflect another layer of structural constraints commonly identified in post-socialist contexts [17][18][19]44,47], stemming from the exhaustion of logistical and managerial capacities, additional handling and storage costs, and the dispersion of limited resources across multiple production and marketing activities [11].”

Diversification may instead increase logistical complexity and limit producers' spatial reach.

“Diversification may instead increase logistical complexity and limit producers' spatial reach, which is consistent with arguments about the constrained capacities of small and medium-sized producers in SFSCs [5,11,36,44].”

In the post-socialist context, small producers remain constrained by a long-term limited access to capital, low production capacity, and weak growth opportunities.

“In the post-socialist context, this finding points to structural conditions frequently emphasized in the literature [11,14,16,46], which argue that small producers remain constrained by a long-term limited access to capital, low production capacity, and weak growth opportunities.”