Paper Title
Bi-Objective Optimization of Perishable Food Distribution: A Heuristic Approach

Abstract
This study considers the distribution problem of the perishable foods and formulates it as a bi-objective vehicle routing problem with objectives of maximization of freshness and minimization of total traveled distances.First, we propose a goal programming formulation of the problem. Second, we develop a heuristic algorithm based on simulated annealing to solve the problem. Efficiency of the developed heuristic algorithm is tested on problems derived from Solomon vehicle routing problem with time windows benchmarks. Results show that the proposed algorithm is quite effective in reaching optimal or near-optimal solutions. Index Terms�Vehicle Routing Problem, Perishable foods, Multi Objective Optimization, Goal Programming, Simulated Annealing.