Assessing food safety compliance for food SMEs in Indonesia

Abstract

In Indonesia, SMEs are still being the backbone of the national economy due to their strategic roles in creating economic growth, providing a large share of the job opportunity, encouraging more equal distribution of economic powers, and contributing to the economic development of the community and to the supply of food products for public consumption. SMEs are also have been growing rapidly and mostly is mushrooming in big cities. However, this vital role and rapid growth have not been followed by the development and updating of food safety arrangements, thus many SMEs are unable to comply with the food safety standards and causing various food safety problems. This study assesses the challenges faced by the SMEs in food safety compliance by conducting a literature review and extracting the information from several major/primary papers (academic literature review and gray literature search) to recognize the major gaps and to propose strategic recommendation in the end. It is concluded that in Indonesia, the compliance failures in food SMEs are most likely due to lack of regulatory knowledge and awareness of the importance of food safety principles, lack of proper attention from the government, and the illegal motive to achieve maximum profit with minimum production cost.