It is thought that more than 60% of vegetables, especially chili, are lost after they are picked in Indonesia. One of the main reasons for this is how the marketing channels are set up. The purpose of this study was to determine how much chili is lost after harvest under different marketing patterns. This study involved 29 participants consisting of 10 farmers and 19 traders from West Java and Jakarta who were selected through snowballing sampling technique. We used structured interviews with questionnaires to gather information and descriptive statistical methods to determine the loss percentages for different parties in the supply chain. The results showed that the marketing chain with the most people, which included a farmer, a collector, and a modern market, had the most losses after harvest, with a loss rate of 22.5%. The marketing chain with the fewest people, which included a farmer, a collector, and a retailer, had the lowest loss rate at 8.5%. These results show that longer supply chains do make postharvest losses more likely, but they are not the only factor that affects postharvest loss levels. The study also identified ways to handle crops after harvest that could help reduce losses. These include better transportation planning, better packaging in plastic crates, and more careful sorting and grading. If these technologies for handling crops after harvest are used correctly, they should keep total losses across different supply chain patterns to a minimum.
Widayanti et al. (2026) studied this question.