As an interconnected network, the food supply chain links multiple actors across production, processing, distribution and consumption. While it plays a vital role in ensuring food security, safety and economic resilience, the sector also faces growing challenges related to its environmental impact and long-term sustainability. Addressing these issues requires a systemic shift toward sustainable circular supply chain models that support net-zero objectives, decarbonization pathways, and ecosystem-wide coordination. This study aims to explore the key factors influencing sustainable circular supply chain management (SCSCM) across five major sectors of the food industry in Iran: grain, dairy, meat, sugar and carbohydrate products. By incorporating the concept of dynamic capabilities into the supply chain context, this study underscores the importance of organizational adaptability and innovation in facilitating the transition toward circular, low-emission supply chains. A snowball-based literature review revealed a lack of prioritization frameworks tailored to the food industry in Iran. To address this gap, the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) was used to identify critical factors, followed by the fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) to evaluate and rank them based on expert judgment. The findings indicate that supplier facilities, trade credit, supplier risk management, environmental policy and environmental costs are the five most critical enablers of circular and sustainable transformation within the food supply chain. These identified factors offer a foundation for policymakers and industry leaders to design long-term, ecosystem-oriented strategies that enable systemic change and accelerate progress toward net-zero goals within the sector.

This study embarks on a comparative evaluation of Circular Economy (CE) performance in the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) using a ro-bust multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework. Drawing on 22 key indicators, the research applies the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to systematically rank the country-level CE implementation across five thematic dimensions: production and consumption, waste management, secondary raw materials, competitiveness and innovation, and global sustainability. The results reveal that Latvia ranks highest, followed by Lithuania and Estonia, underscoring significant differences in waste management efficiency, investment in CE sectors, and material self-sufficiency. The main contribution of this paper lies in the development of a comprehensive, quantitative bench-marking framework that integrates multiple CE indicators and MCDM methods to assess national performance in a data-driven manner. The methodology developed here can serve as a replicable model for CE assessment in other regional or national contexts.