Assessing the performance of sustainability practices in an Italian food supply chain

Purpose – Managerial practices are essential for activating the potential sustainability transition of the food supply chain. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature on the assessment, reporting, and disclosure of value in the food supply chain through a multiple-case study. Design/methodology/approach – The present study proposes an assessment tool that can disclose the real impact of managerial practices with an innovative application of the SAFA Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) framework within the context of the Italian meat production supply chain and, thus, enable producers to orient the transition process. Findings – The multiple-case study analyzes and discusses three years of data (2019–2021) for three medium and large Italian companies operating in the meat production supply chain. The discussion includes the comparison of results based on the set of 17 themes and 80 proposed sustainability indicators. Practical implications – This paper has both theoretical and practical contributions to the current discussion. This work extends the literature on the propensity to measure and report sustainability’ performances. Social implications – This paper fosters the promotion of sustainable managerial practices and expands the literature on managerial tools to disclose sustainability’ performance. Originality/value – The supply chain due diligence theoretical background has been adopted to investigate the (outside-in) supply chain transparency. In addition, the institutional legitimacy theory has been applied as (inside-out) perspective on how companies address their contribution to the production systems transition.