Abstract: In recent years, the frequent occurrence of emergencies has brought severe challenges to the supply and price stability in the fresh produce market, causing supply shortages and price fluctuations of fresh produce and damaging the interests of consumers. In this context, the government may rely on the retailer to release emergency-used fresh produce that has been reserved in advance (briefly, emergency products) to the market. To stabilize market supply and price better, the government will also set a price limit for emergency products. However, the retailer may be reluctant to purchase and sell emergency products because they are not profitable or may damage its own profit under a price limit, which will affect the effective release of emergency products and consumers’ living security. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze whether the retailer will actively release emergency products under the government’s price limit policy and how the government sets the price limit to promote the effective release of emergency products. We discuss the above problem in the following three parts. First, considering that the government provides the emergency products and sets a price limit, we construct a multi-stage game model of the fresh produce supply chain when the emergency products are released or not released, and analyze the optimal decisions and profits of supplier and retailer. On this basis, we discuss the release strategy of emergency products in the supply chain, and explore the government’s price limit policy to promote the effective release of emergency products. Third, we explore the effects of emergency products’ release on the price and supply of fresh produce, consumer surplus, social welfare, and the profits of supply chain members. Finally, through numerical analysis, the model is tested and management inspiration is provided, which offers guidance for the government to tackle supply risks and provides theoretical support for market members’ decision-making under the government’s price limit policy. The results indicate that the government can rely on the retailer to release the emergency products to the market by setting a relatively high price limit. The release of the emergency product can always exert the effectiveness of stabilizing supply and price for fresh produce, and the effectiveness is more significant when the price limit is lower, the yield for fresh produce is higher, and the freshness difference between emergency products and fresh produce is smaller. The release of the emergency product can improve consumer surplus and social welfare. Under a certain price limit, it will also promote the supplier’s and retailer’s profit improvement and bring about an “all-win” situation. We also show that there exists an optimal price-limit level to maximize social welfare, and when fresh produce has a higher yield, the optimal price-limit level is higher. Finally, even if the sale of emergency products becomes an “unprofitable business”, the retailer may introduce emergency products, ing the supplier to reduce the wholesale price of fresh produce, thereby increasing its overall profit.

Key words: fresh produce supply chain, price limit, release of emergency products, stability of supply and price