For a trip with multiple pickup points, route selection is one of the major decisions.
As shown in Figure 1, if it is assumed farm a is the starting point, then after arriving at
farm a there are more than one option for the next pickup point from farm b, farm c,…,farm x. This decision about route selection must be made at each node excluding the last farm. In the standard VRP or travelling salesman problem, travel distance is the major consideration. However, in food transportation systems, we contend that storage condition in transportation and degradation in the quality of products should be given equal consideration.