It is clear that in food supply chains, less DPs are possible due to long production
throughput times. Figure 8 presents an overview of DPs that are possible in the supply
chain of perishable products; in this case flowers and potted plants. In the first two designs
(DP1 and DP2) all products are delivered to the customers from local or regional stock – no
customization activities are performed. In design 3, potted plants are customized (that is
value-adding activities performed to make the plants customer specific) at the auction, trader
or hub and successively delivered to the market outlets. Finally, in design 4 the grower has a
direct relationship with the final customer and harvest, packs and delivers its products (via
traders or transporters) to customer outlets; the auction can be bypassed in this network
design. The concept is useful to determine if processors should produce a large volume
of end-products and put them on stock or try to minimize inventory levels by assembling/
packing products to order.