# Indicators for the Sustainability Evaluation of Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review

Célestine Jeannette Commenge, Anne-Laure Ladier, Valérie Botta-Genoulaz

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Célestine Jeannette Commenge, Anne-Laure Ladier, Valérie Botta-Genoulaz. Indicators for the Sustainability Evaluation of Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review. 11th IFAC Conference on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control, International Federation of Automatic Control, Jun 2025, Trondheim, Norway. pp.280-285, 10.1016/j.ifacol.2025.09.049. hal-05176316v2

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# Indicators for the Sustainability Evaluation of Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review

Célestine Commenge* Anne-Laure Ladier *
Valérie Botta-Genoulaz *

* INSA Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, DISP UR4570, 69621 Villeurbanne, France (e-mail: celestine.commenge@insa-lyon.fr, anne-laure.ladier@insa-lyon.fr, valerie.botta@insa-lyon.fr).

**Abstract:** Short food supply chains have increasingly appeared as sustainable alternatives to the traditional food system, though their sustainability lacks scientific consensus. This systematic literature review examines the indicators used to evaluate the sustainability of short food supply chains, detailed through the “Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems” framework. The analysis reveals a focus on quantitative evaluations, mainly in occidental countries, with an emphasis on farmers and supply chain configurations with maximum one intermediary. The economic and environmental pillars are the most assessed ones while some social themes are less studied. This review highlights the need to suggest a comprehensive indicator framework tailored to the needs and constraints of the stakeholders of short food supply chains.

Copyright © 2025 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

**Keywords:** Short Food Supply Chain, Sustainability, Indicators, Literature Review

## 1. INTRODUCTION

The traditional food system is facing challenges and criticism, particularly concerning its lack of sustainability. In this context, Short Food Supply Chains (SFSCs) are increasingly considered as a potential alternative. They are defined in opposition to the traditional food system as supply chains “involving a limited number of economic operators”, “committed to local development” (European Parliament and Council of the European Union (2013)), “where the product reaches the consumer embedded with information” (Marsden et al. (2000)). However, there is no scientific consensus that SFSCs are more sustainable than traditional supply chains. Addressing this topic requires to evaluate the SFSC sustainability ; but to the best of our knowledge, there is no literature review focusing on how SFSC sustainability is evaluated.

The aim of our work is to fill this research gap by addressing the following research question : how is SFSC sustainability evaluated in the scientific literature ? We mainly focus our systematic literature review on performance indicators, as defined by Berrah (2002), and classify them into the “Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems” (SAFA) framework (Food and Agriculture Organization for United Nations, Bentancur et al. (2013)). The SAFA framework exhaustively describes the different aspects of sustainability. It divides the sustainability pillars in themes and sub-themes which makes it a relevant tool for the classification of indicators. It also suggests several performance indicators for each sub-themes, which are regularly used in the SFSC literature

(Malak-Rawlikowska et al. (2019), Mastronardi et al. (2019)).

The contribution of this article is therefore a systematic literature review of SFSC configurations, stakeholders, and sustainability indicators organized through the SAFA framework. The rest of the article is thus structured as follows : Section 2 introduces the methodology ; in Section 3, we present an analysis of the article selection. Section 4 focuses on the classification of indicators through the SAFA framework, before concluding with Section 5.

## 2. METHODOLOGY

We searched for English articles on Web of Science and Science Direct databases, on title, abstract and keywords (last consulted, May 2024) using the keywords combination : “short food supply chain*” OR “alternative food network*” OR “alternative agri-food network*” OR “local food system*” OR “regional food system*”. 1731 records were identified from Web of Science and 370 from Science Direct databases. We removed duplicates, articles without an abstract and kept only journal articles referenced in the Scimago Journal Ranking, which made a total of 1537 articles.

Articles were then screened based on their title and abstract. Articles were excluded depending on two criteria : because they do not evaluate the sustainability or because they cannot be linked to the supply chain domain. In relation to the first exclusion criteria, resilience was not considered as a part of sustainability. In relation to the second exclusion criteria, nutrition and health related
articles as well as market studies and articles focused on governance were excluded. Among the selected articles, one was unavailable. In total 126 articles were retrieved. We assessed these 126 articles for eligibility by fully reading them, with the same exclusion criteria in mind. In total 75 articles were selected.

Among these 75 articles, 39 were selected as basis for snowballing. 61 articles were selected from snowballing backward, and 27 from snowballing forward. Among them, 5 were unavailable and 3 did not have their journal listed in the Scimago Journal Ranking. The rest of the articles were fully read with the same exclusion criteria as before. In total, 43 articles from snowballing backward and 16 articles from snowballing forward were included in the review. During the analysis, 4 supplementary articles were excluded. The final selection contains 130 articles.

For the content analysis, the coding process has been collaborative and inductive, as defined by Seuring and Gold (2012), using a spreadsheet. We first identified in each article the SFSC configurations and stakeholders studied – who can be farmers, resellers, transformers and consumers, as well as transport intermediaries – the main approaches used to evaluate the sustainability of the SFSC, and the repartition of the studies among the three sustainability pillars. Secondly, we identified the indicators used in each of the 130 articles of our selection and categorized them under the SAFA sub-themes. An indicator can cover multiple sub-themes that may or may not belong to the same pillar.

# 3. ANALYSIS OF THE ARTICLE SELECTION

## 3.1 Descriptive analysis

The publication trend of our article selection shows a global increase over time, with a sharp rise starting in 2014. Our article selection mostly focuses on supply chains and stakeholders located in western countries, particularly in the United States (27% of the selection), in Italy (14%), in France (15%) and in the United Kingdom (8%). The rest of Western Europe and Northern Europe are both represented in 8% of the articles, and Eastern Europe in only 6% of the articles. Geographical areas from the global South (Africa, Asia, South-America and Oceania) are way less studied (15% in total).

Almost half of the articles selected are case studies (48%) and a third are surveys/database analyses (32%). Literature reviews and theoretical frameworks are less represented with respectively 9% and 4% of our selection. A purely qualitative approach is used in 27% of the articles. The high number of articles that are either quantitative of both quantitative and qualitative (73%) is partially explained with the high number of articles using quantitative indicators (69%) and the articles using a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology (18%).

Farmers are the most studied stakeholders in 89% of empirical articles, i.e. case studies, survey/database analysis and other empirical articles. Consumers and resellers are both studied in 27% while transformers are only studied in 16% of the empirical articles. Indeed, the food products in SFSCs are often not transformed and sold

raw. Also, the lower representation of intermediaries is no surprise since the “physical and social proximity” is a core concept in the definition of SFSCs (Galli and Brunori (2013)).

## 3.2 Supply Chains configurations

Almost half of the article selection (44%) do not fully precise the supply chains under study. They are either literature reviews or theoretical frameworks, or they focus on stakeholders independently from their supply chain, or study only a specific part of the supply chain.

The most studied supply chain configuration is “farmer → consumer” (57%), with no intermediaries involved. In second and third positions are the configurations with a single intermediary: “farmer → reseller → consumer” (30%) and “farmer → transformer → consumer” (18%). Supply chains with two intermediaries are represented in only 10% of the article selection. This percentage falls even lower for supply chains with three and four intermediaries, represented in respectively 3% and less than 1% of the article selection.

Supply chains with more than one intermediary are often not conceptualized as “short”. As explained in Section 3.1, “physical and social proximity” is a core concept in the definition of SFSC (Galli and Brunori (2013)). This is often used to confront SFSCs with the traditional food system. For example, 32% of our article selection compare SFSC sustainability with traditional food system sustainability. However, strictly opposing short and traditional food supply chains on these concepts involves the risk of excluding some forms of more complex SFSCs.

## 3.3 Several approaches to evaluate SFSC sustainability

To evaluate the sustainability of SFSCs, the articles heavily rely on indicators – in 78% of the article selection. 12% of the articles use a conceptual framework. Conceptual frameworks mainly suggest a supply chain model (Charatsari et al. (2023)) and/or a list of indicators (Graef et al. (2018)). 11% of the articles rely on a statistical analysis ; most articles using this approach also use indicators. When articles do not rely on a list of indicators, on a statistical analysis or on a conceptual framework, they directly evaluate the sustainability through primary data analysis (interviews, surveys and field work) (19%) or, more rarely, through secondary data analysis (4%).

The LCA methodology is used in 17% of the selection, classified as a “list of indicators” approach (International Organization for Strandardization (2006)). Simulation approaches are little used in only 4% of the selection and are also classified in the “list of indicators” approach (through a manual verification for each article).

## 3.4 Repartition among the three sustainability pillars

We use the widely recognized three pillars sustainability framework. As shown in Figure 1, the most studied pillars are the environmental one (71%) and the economic one (64%). It is worth noting that studies exclusively focusing on the latter mostly cover farmers. The social pillar is less studied (44%). Most articles focus either on a single pillar
or on the three pillars at the same time (35%). However the social pillar is rarely evaluated independently from the others : in only 2% of the articles.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Distribution of articles by studied pillar</figcaption></figure>

## 4. INDICATORS CLASSIFICATION IN THE SAFA FRAMEWORK

Table 1 details the SAFA framework and gives the number of articles selected addressing each theme and sub-theme of the framework. The themes marked with a * originally belonged to the fourth pillar (“Governance”) ; we integrated them into the “Social” pillar. Within each pillar in the following subsections, the themes and sub-themes are presented in the order given by the SAFA framework.

### 4.1 Economic pillar

In the “Economy” pillar, the most evaluated themes are “Investment” (55 articles) and “Vulnerability” (30 articles). The least evaluated is the “Product quality and information” (14 articles).

In the “Investment” theme, “Profitability” is the most focused-on sub-theme, far ahead of the others with 52 articles evaluating it. An explanation is that the financial performance of farms is a strong concern in the current literature : “SFSCs have limited sales volume, and sellers receive prices that may not cover their higher production and marketing costs [...] as well as transaction costs [...]” (Chiaverina et al. (2023)). In accordance, the indicators used focus on income, profit and benefit (e.g. gross income, net profit, net return), prices (e.g. average price per kg), costs and expenses (e.g. production costs) and the creation of added value (e.g. value added per kg). The “Internal investment”, “Community investment”, and “Long ranging investment” sub-themes are less evaluated with four, four and three articles respectively. Chiaverina et al. (2023) demonstrate that the participation of a farm in a SFSC does not guarantee a good financial performance. Thus, it impacts the farms’ ability to invest. This may explain why articles tend to focus less on these sub-themes.

Most of the articles tackling the “Vulnerability” theme (30 articles in total) focus on the stability of the production (18) and on the stability of the market (16). The “Stability of supply”, “Risk management” and “Liquidity” sub-theme are evaluated in six, five and four articles

<table><caption>Table 1. Articles within the SAFA Framework</caption><thead><tr><th>Pillar</th><th>Themes</th><th>Nb of articles assessing this theme</th><th>Sub-themes</th><th>Nb of articles assessing this sub-theme</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="12">Economy</td><td rowspan="3">Investment</td><td rowspan="3">55</td><td>Internal Investment</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Community Investment</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Long Ranging Investment</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Vulnerability</td><td>Profitability</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>Stability of Production</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>Stability of Supply</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Product Quality and Information</td><td>Stability of Market</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Liquidity</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Risk Management</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">Local Economy</td><td>Food Safety</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Food Quality</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Product Information</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Atmosphere</td><td>Value Creation</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Local Procurement</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="12">Environment</td><td rowspan="2">Water</td><td>Greenhouse Gases</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Air Quality</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Land</td><td>Water Withdrawal</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>Water Quality</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Biodiversity</td><td>Soil Quality</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>Land Degradation</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Materials and Energy</td><td>Ecosystem Diversity</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>Species Diversity</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Animal Welfare</td><td>Genetic Diversity</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Material Use</td><td>15</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Corporate Ethics*</td><td>Energy Use</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>Waste Reduction and Disposal</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Accountability*</td><td>Animal Health</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Freedom from Stress</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Participation*</td><td>Mission Statement</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Due Diligence</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3"> rule of Law*</td><td>Holistic Audits</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Responsibility</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Transparency</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Stakeholder Dialogue</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>Grievance Procedures</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Conflict Resolution</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Legitimacy</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3"> rule of Law*</td><td>Remedy, Restoration and Prevention</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Civic Responsibility</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>Resource Appropriation</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Sustainability Management Plan</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Full-Cost Accounting</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Quality of Life</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td>Capacity Development</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Fair Access to Means of Production</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Responsible Buyers</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3"> rule of Law*</td><td>Rights of Suppliers</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>Employment Relations</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>Forced Labour</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Child Labour</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Freedom of Association and Right to Bargaining</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3"> rule of Law*</td><td>Non Discrimination</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Gender Equality</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Support to Vulnerable People</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Workplace Safety and Health Provisions</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Public Health</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2"> rule of Law*</td><td>Indigenous Knowledge</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Food Sovereignty</td><td>9</td></tr></tbody></table>
respectively. During the screening process, we excluded articles focusing on resilience which may explain the small number focusing on the “Risk management” and “Stability of supply” sub-themes. Indicators from the “Stability of production” sub-theme mainly measure the productivity (e.g. yield), as well as product diversification (e.g. range of products sold). Indicators from the “Stability of market” sub-theme mainly address the diversity of the distribution channels used (e.g. insertion in distribution channels), the consumers’willingness to pay for SFSC products (e.g. premium price), if their expectations are met (e.g. price perception), and the stability of sales (e.g. average annual consumption).

In the “Product quality and information” theme, the “Food safety” and “Food quality” sub-themes are addressed in only eight and six articles respectively, despite SFSC products being claimed to be of better quality than traditional food products (Enthoven and den Broeck (2021)). This may be a consequence of the selection criteria specified in Section 2. For “Food safety”, indicators focus on the respect of standards and controls (e.g. compliance with legal limits) and the absence of pathogen and pollution in the product (e.g. sanitation level). For “Food quality”, most indicators also belong to the sub-theme “Public health” and focus on the nutritional qualities of the product (e.g. calcium content). Indicators from the “Products information” sub-theme relate to certifications and labels on one hand (e.g. percentage of product certified), and to traceability on the other hand (e.g. availability of information to consumers). This sub-theme is also little addressed (8 articles).

The “Local economy” theme covers the impacts of SFSCs on their regional economy through local procurement and the creation of local value. A positive local influence is a central expected outcome of SFSCs (Enthoven and den Broeck (2021)) which explains that 26 articles focus on this theme. Indicators measure the inclusion of local producers in the supply chain (e.g. number of producers involved), the creation of added value through local procurement (e.g. number of local suppliers), the creation of employment (e.g. number of employees), and the regional economic impacts. For the latter, regional multiplier effects as well as direct, indirect and induced impacts are calculated with the Input-Output methodology.

## 4.2 Environmental pillar

In the “Environment” pillar, the most evaluated themes are “Atmosphere” (49 articles) and “Materials and Energy” (46 articles). The “Animal welfare” theme is the least addressed, in only four articles.

The “Atmosphere” theme (49 articles) covers the greenhouse gases emissions (48 articles) as well as other forms of air pollution (25 articles). Indicators related to the “Greenhouse gases” sub-theme are heavily used, in 52% of the articles addressing the environmental pillar. They calculate greenhouse gases emissions (e.g. greenhouse gases from processing), carbon footprint (e.g. kg of CO2 per product unit) and global warming potential. The “Air quality” sub-theme indicators relate to ozone (e.g. ozone depletion potential), photo-oxidant formation (e.g. photochemical oxidant creation potential) and particle

matter formation, generally calculated with LCA methodology. Food miles and transport related indicators (e.g. travel distance), used in 17 articles, are also included in those two sub-themes, as well as in the “Energy use” sub-theme. Indeed, transport implies a consumption of energy (generally fossil) and may produce greenhouse gases as well as particle matter or azote dioxide. However, the heavy use of “Food miles” and transport related indicators has been subject to criticism as it is insufficient to fully evaluate these environmental impacts (Cleveland et al. (2015)).

The “Water”, “Land” and “Biodiversity” themes are evaluated in a comparable amount of articles: respectively 31, 28, and 31. In the “Water” and “Land” themes, “Water quality” (16 articles) and “Soil quality” (27 articles) sub-themes are mostly assessed with LCA-related indicators : acidification, eutrophication and eco-toxicity. “Soil quality” is also evaluated with indicators related to pesticide use (e.g. sulfuric acid use). “Water withdrawal” (21 articles) is calculated with water consumption related indicators (e.g. water use). Other indicators qualitatively address water management (e.g. water saving practices). “Land degradation” (8 articles) focuses on soil conservation practices, through the preservation of natural areas (e.g. farmland in trusts). “Ecosystem diversity” is the most addressed sub-theme of the “Biodiversity” theme (20 articles). Most indicators focus on land use and protection, calculating the areas exploited for production purposes, protected or left natural. The indicators related to the “Species diversity” sub-theme (9 articles) calculate farm crops diversity and address species conservation practices (e.g. practice of mixed cropping / inter-cropping). The indicators related to the “Genetic diversity” sub-theme (9 articles) address the diversity of used seeds (e.g. conservation in situ of varieties), the presence of local breeds (e.g. percentage of local/traditional products) and the presence of natural vegetation and wild species (e.g. presence of pollinators).

In the “Material and energy” theme (46 articles), the “Energy use” sub-theme is particularly focused on (39 articles). As said previously, we chose to attribute the “food miles” indicator and indicators related to food transportation (used in 17 articles) to this sub-theme, as well as to the “Greenhouse gases” and “Air pollution” sub-themes. The rest of the “Energy use” sub-theme (39 articles) indicators directly calculate energy consumption (e.g. non renewable energy use) or relate to energy use management (e.g. food miles reduction). The indicators on the “material use” sub-theme (15 articles) mainly focus on packaging (e.g. packaging waste), on the use of production inputs (e.g. treatment frequency index), machinery and storage (e.g. farm equipment use), and on the overuse of abiotic resources (e.g. metal depletion). The indicators within the “Waste and reduction disposal” sub-theme (19 articles) calculate waste consumption (e.g. amount of paper consumed) and address waste management (e.g. circular economy initiative).

Finally, the “Animal welfare” theme is considerably less evaluated than the others environment-related themes: only a fraction of the studied supply chains in our article selection trade animal products, thus consider impacts on their welfare. Indicators focus on animal density, time spent on pasture, lifetime and diseases.
It is worth noting that, contrary to the “Materials and energy”, “Atmosphere”, “Water” and “Land” indicators, the “Biodiversity” and “Animal welfare” indicators relate almost exclusively to the context of farm production activities. The impacts of the other stakeholders are unknown in the context of SFSCs.

## 4.3 Social pillar

Despite being the least evaluated one, the social pillar has the most important number of themes and sub-themes, as we assimilated the “Governance” pillar in it. The most evaluated themes are “Decent livelihood” in 26 articles and “Human safety and health” in 24 articles. The least evaluated articles are “Labour rights”, “Accountability”, “Corporate Ethics” and “Holistic management” in respectively five, four, two and two articles.

The “Corporate ethics” (2 articles), “Accountability” (4 articles), “Participation” (3 articles without the “Stakeholder dialogue” sub-theme), “Rule of law” (5 articles without the “Civic responsibility” sub-theme) and “Holistic management” (2 articles) themes are particularly little addressed. Indeed, most SFSCs under evaluation involve less than two intermediaries, as seen in Section 3.2, and are associated with the notion of localness. It is thus expected that most studied businesses participating in SFSCs are small or very small enterprises. These themes refer to sustainability management policies, practices and procedures that are generally more formally implemented in bigger companies and are still informal in smaller ones, which may explain the smaller number of evaluations. It may also be explained by the selection criteria used during the screening process (see Section 2). The sub-theme “Stakeholder dialogue” within the “Participation” theme is an exception as it is addressed in 18 articles. Indicators focus on the creation of social support and cooperation (e.g. internal cohesion factors), the fluidity of communication between stakeholders (e.g. availability of information), the participation in a local network (e.g. proportion of the neighborly relations), the development of positive relationships with clients (e.g. number of eaters and farmers interacting) but also the development of trust (e.g. trust level), social recognition (e.g. recognition scale) and a sense of belonging (e.g. sense of community scale). Social embeddedness and stakeholder relationships are central in the creation and development of SFSCs (Chiffoleau and Dourian (2020)). The “Civic responsibility” sub-theme from “Rule of law” is the second exception, with an evaluation in 12 articles. Indeed, as explained in paragraph 4.1, SFSCs are expected to have a positive local impact. Indicators, mostly qualitative, mainly address the commitment of stakeholders in the local community (e.g. promotion of citizenship culture) and awareness brought to consumers (e.g. existence of educational activities).

The “Decent livelihood” theme is the most evaluated one in the Social pillar, with 26 articles. Indicators mainly focus on capacity development (11 articles) – which mostly addresses educational opportunities (e.g. presence of training/coaching) and skill development (e.g. level of education) – and on life quality (22 articles). For this sub-theme, indicators deal with job satisfaction (e.g. happiness scale), working conditions (e.g. presence of corporate

welfare) and time spent at work (e.g. working hours), but their main focus is on the stakeholders’ income (e.g. wage level). Indeed, a better income is among the first reasons farmers choose to join a SFSC (Renting et al. (2003)). “Consumers are believed to be willing to pay a higher price for local over non-local food” (Enthoven and den Broeck (2021)) and the smaller number of intermediaries in SFSCs is expected to help farmers increase their margin (Chiaverina et al. (2023)).

In this context, the “Fair trading practices” theme – evaluated in seven articles – can be linked to the “Decent livelihood” theme, with indicators mainly evaluating the fairness of sale contracts and prices (e.g. price distribution), and the fair distribution of added value (e.g. addressed via a performance scale).

The “Labour rights” theme (five articles) is also under-studied. However, it is far from certain that workers’ rights are fully respected in the SFSC context. For example, Azima and Mandler (2022) underline the heavy workload some farm workers bear. In this context, it would be worth looking at whether the legislation on supplementary hours remuneration is really respected.

The “Cultural diversity” and “Equity” themes are studied in a similar number of articles, respectively 10 and 12. “Cultural diversity” mainly focuses on the preservation and respect of local heritage and traditions (e.g. use of traditional processes) while “Equity” mainly focuses on gender equality (e.g. proportion of female farm operators), inclusion of migrant populations (e.g. migration rates), and support to vulnerable people (e.g. affordability by middle and low income consumers). The “Support to vulnerable people” sub-theme is particularly noteworthy in the context of SFSCs : a strategy for some stakeholders is to set premium prices for the SFSC products in order to increase their profitability (Campos et al. (2021)) which naturally leads to question the accessibility of SFSC products to a more vulnerable population.

The “Human safety and health” theme regroups the “Workplace safety and health provision” sub-theme, evaluated in only four articles – linked with the “Labour rights” theme, as work safety generally depends on rules and legislation – and the “Public health” sub-theme (22 articles). As precised in Section 2, we excluded nutrition and health-related articles during our screening process. Although probably underestimated, the “Public health” sub-theme is one of the most studied in the social pillar – together with “Quality of life”. The indicators focus on the product nutritional qualities (e.g. salt content), the consumers’ diet (e.g. dietary diversity index), the food freshness and taste (e.g. food quality scale), the food availability and accessibility (e.g. food access scale) and the human toxicity potential (linked with the LCA methodology). On the contrary, the “Workplace safety and health provision” theme is little evaluated. Indicators focus on health coverage provided by the employer (e.g. presence of health insurance) and on safety at work (e.g. number of accidents). This sub-theme deserves to be explored in greater depth, as certain agricultural activities are known for their difficult work conditions (French Ministry of Agriculture Soveignty and Forest (2017)).
## 5. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVES

This article systematically reviews the SFSC configurations, stakeholders and indicators used in the scientific literature evaluating the sustainability of SFSCs. Through the SAFA framework, we precise which aspects of the sustainability have been most addressed with indicators. Most articles provide quantitative evaluations of western SFSCs and/or their stakeholders, and include farmers within their scope. The environmental and economic pillars are the most studied ones, generally through a list of indicators. The most predominant sub-themes are, for the economic pillar, profitability and value creation, for the environmental pillar, greenhouse gases and energy use, and for the social pillar, stakeholders dialogue, quality of life and public health.

This work contributes to the current theory on sustainability evaluation frameworks by refining the SAFA framework with clusters of indicators. It also gives an overview of the tendencies related to the sustainability evaluation of SFSCs. Stakeholders may find interest in this work to find relevant indicators and complement their current approaches of sustainability evaluation.

This work opens several perspectives. The analysis of the selected articles suggests that future studies should focus on resellers and transformers as well as on more complex forms of SFSCs. Among the several approaches used to evaluate the sustainability of SFSCs, simulations are little represented and could be developed in future studies. The evaluation of the economic and environmental themes seems more mature than the evaluation of the social themes. Indicators are less diversified, and most of them are agreed upon and established in the scientific literature (income, yield, global warming potential etc.). Social indicators, in comparison, are harder to regroup and compare. Although the number of indicators identified in our selection of articles is significant, some themes and sub-themes are left over (long ranging investment, animal health, responsibility etc.). It is also difficult for stakeholders to understand the most appropriate and comprehensive way to evaluate the sustainability of SFSCs. We suggest that future studies focus on adapting sustainability evaluation frameworks and performance indicators to the needs and constraints of SFSC stakeholders.

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