Food safety and its digital traceability strategies: a supplier-processor profit distribution perspective

The study aims to provide a comprehensive, sustainable, and technologically advanced traceability model that enhances the safety and resilience of the food supply chain in Oman. It also seeks to create a framework for enhancing safety and resilience in the supply chain. This framework will influence other regional supply chains to embrace food traceability and contribute towards global food safety and sustainability efforts. This study followed a positivist research philosophy and used the quantitative research approach. A structured questionnaire was administered online to collect data from 385 respondents. To improve the reliability of the research instrument, a pilot test was conducted. Respondents were selected using a snowball technique. The results were tested using structural equation modelling. The results showed that compliance can improve food safety performance through data accuracy and timeliness in food supply chains in Oman. It was also found that technology traceability systems can improve food safety performance through collaborative supply chain relationships in food supply chains in Oman. Additionally, the research showed that technology traceability systems, through cooperative supply chains, enhance sustainable practices. The integration of technology traceability systems and regulatory compliance are significant elements that foster cooperation and bolster food safety and sustainability. The study holds significant implications for various stakeholders within Oman’s food industry and broader applications in similar contexts. With broader implications for the global food sector, the study offers a comprehensive framework for improving Oman’s food safety and supply chain resilience. Adopting such models can result in notable gains in economic efficiency, sustainability, consumer trust, and regulatory compliance. Oman can fortify its food business and serve as a model for other nations by utilising cutting-edge technologies and encouraging cooperation among stakeholders.

Strategically unlearning specific knowledge, behaviors, and practices facilitates product and process innovation, business model evolution, and new market opportunities and is essential to meet emergent supply chain and customer requirements. Indeed, addressing societal concerns such as climate change and net zero means elements of contemporary practice in food supply chains need to be unlearned to ensure new practices are adopted. However, unlearning is a risky process if crucial knowledge is lost, for example, if knowledge is situated in the supply base not the organization itself, or there is insufficient organizational food safety knowledge generation, curation, and management when new practices/processes are designed and implemented. An exploratory, critical review of management and food safety academic and gray literature is undertaken that aims to consider the cycle of unlearning, learning, and relearning in food organizations and supply chains with particular emphasis on organizational innovation, inertia, and the impact on food safety management systems and food safety performance. Findings demonstrate it is critical with food safety practices, such as duration date coding or refrigeration practices, that organizations "unlearn" in a way that does not increase organizational, food safety, or public health risk. This paper contributes to extant literature by highlighting the organizational vulnerabilities that can arise when strategically unlearning to promote sustainability in a food supply context. Mitigating such organizational, food safety, and public health risk means organizations must simultaneously drive unlearning, learning, and relearning as a dynamic integrated knowledge acquisition and management approach. The research implications are of value to academics, business managers, and wider industry.

The novel coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, is a recent disease that has struck the entire world. This review is conducted to study the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to food safety as well as the food supply chain. The pandemic has caused various changes around the world as numerous countries and governments have implemented lockdowns and restrictions to help curb the rising cases due to COVID-19. However, these restrictions have impacted many aspects of everyday life, including the economic sectors such as the food industry. An overview of the current COVID-19 situation in Malaysia was discussed in this review along with its implication on food safety and food supply chain. This is followed by a discussion on the definition of food safety, the impact of the pandemic to food safety, as well as the steps to be taken to ensure food safety. Hygiene of food handlers, complete vaccination requirement, kitchen sanitation and strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) should be in place to ensure the safety of food products, either in food industries or small scale business. Additionally, the aspect of the food supply chain was also discussed, including the definition of the food supply chain and the impact of COVID-19 to the food supply chain. Travel restriction and lack of manpower had impacted the usual operation and production activities. Lack of customers and financial difficulties to sustain business operational costs had even resulted in business closure. As a conclusion, this article provides insight into crucial factors that need to be considered to effectively contain COVID-19 cases and highlights the precaution methods to be taken through continuous monitoring and implementation by Malaysian government.

Food and drink supply chains are complex, continually changing systems, involving many participants. They present stakeholders across the food and drinks industries with considerable challenges. Delivering performance in food supply chains offers expert perspectives to help practitioners and academics to improve their supply chain operations. The Editors have identified six key challenges in managing food and drinks supply chains. Each section of the book focuses on one of these important issues. The first chapters consider the fundamental role of relationship management in supply chains. The next section discusses another significant issue: aligning supply and demand. Part three considers five different approaches to effective and efficient process management, while quality and safety management, an issue food companies need to take very seriously, is subject of the next section. Parts five and six review issues which are currently driving change in food supply chains: the effective use of new technologies and the desire to deliver food sustainably and responsibly. With expert contributions from leaders in their fields, Delivering performance in food supply chains will help practitioners and academics to understand different approaches in supply chain management, explore alternative methods and develop more effective systems. Considers the fundamental role of relationship management in supply chains including an overview of performance measurement in the management of food supply chains Discusses the alignment of supply and demand in food supply chains and reviews sales and operations planning and marketing strategies for competitive advantage in the food industry Provides an overview of the effective use of new technologies and those that will be used in the future to deliver food sustainably and reliably

Digitalising food manufacturing

This paper provides a method to assess the customer value and marketing possibilities of increasing transparency about the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of supply chains. The willingness of small firms, in this study farmers in food supply chains, to make information available about certain CSR issues is measured and compared with CSR issues about which consumers value more information. This will identify the CSR issues about which it would be appropriate for supply chains to increase their transparency. Moreover, farmers in supply chains are grouped based on the information about CSR issues that they are willing to make available and matched with consumer segments that have a need for such information. The method is demonstrated for Dutch dairy supply chains, but it can easily be adapted to other (food) supply chains. Transparency about the CSR issue ‘food safety’ has marketing potential for Dutch dairy supply chains and can be increased relatively simply. Transparency about the CSR issue ‘animal welfare’ also has good marketing potential, but increasing the transparency about animal welfare is considered difficult. Transparency about the CSR issues ‘environment’ and ‘revenues and costs’ has little marketing potential for Dutch dairy supply chains. The existence of market segments that have a need for information about certain CSR issues and that can be matched with groups of farmers willing to provide this information shows that there are marketing opportunities for product differentiation and target marketing in the Dutch dairy supply chain.

In a food supply chain, food quality and safety are of paramount importance as there is a drastic change in consumers’ food habits, behaviour and markets. Consumer expectations for food quality and safety during the current pandemic situation are the main driving forces behind this change. Food safety has become essential, and in order to have a safe food and to get a sustainable system of food in a food supply chain, emerging green technologies are of immense importance. In a food supply chain, having good-quality food is necessary, which is safe for consumption and free of contamination. Considering these objectives, acquiring the food safety and quality is of immense prominence and responsibility of all the stakeholders in food supply chain. Alongside this journey of food products from the field to fork, there are several risks linked to food contamination which may occur in the whole supply chain. With an aim of achieving the safety and quality in the food supply chain, stakeholders, besides following the legislations and standards have also to include the effective green technological approaches in the supply chain. Evidently, several green technological approaches have emerged which can be adapted with an intention of confirming the food quality and safety in the overall food supply chain. The aim of this chapter is to provide a concise description of the green technologies and to discuss them from the view point of food quality and safety.KeywordsFood supply chainFood qualityFood safetyGreen technological approaches

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global food supply chain, strengthened consumers' awareness of the traceability system throughout the supply chain, and gradually changed consumers' consumption concepts and consumption patterns. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyse the relevant literature on food safety in the food supply chain, examine its current status, hot spots, and development trends, and provide some suggestions for academics and relevant government departments in food supply chain safety research.MethodsWe collected the literature on the food safety research of the food supply chain from the Scopus database, used BibExcel to count the subject categories, published journals, geographical distributions, research institutions, authors, and keywords in the literature, and used Pajek software to analyse the keywords in the literature, perform co-occurrence analysis, draw related knowledge maps, and perform cluster analysis on primary keywords. Finally, to study the development trend, we used CorTexT software to illustrate the theme evolution path map in this research field.ResultsThe keyword visualization network revealed the following key research topics: (1) food safety at the consumer end of the food supply chain, (2) food safety management in the food supply chain, (3) risk management of food safety in the food safety chain, and (4) food safety at the production end of the food supply chain.ConclusionsAfter comprehensive discussion and analysis, we concluded that food supply chain management may be a hot topic in the future, especially in traceability management combined with the blockchain. It is necessary to explore in-depth how the blockchain can affect the food supply chain to provide a theoretical basis for managing the latter.

Food safety and quality has received attention in the agri‐food sector and is basis of all initiatives taken on different activity levels starting from farm to enterprises as a whole on regional, national, and international levels. A hybrid of the ISO 9001, Quality Management System and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), ISO 22000 has been developed as an international solution for improving the food safety. Instead of applying good manufacturing practices, HACCP and ISO 9001:2000 separately, ISO 22000:2005 is implemented to observe the synergetic effect and to ensure food safety in food supply chain. ISO 22000 also known as Food Safety Management System (FSMS) is an international auditable standard. Standard ensures safe food supply throughout the chain and provide a framework of internationally harmonized system for the global approach. ISO 22000 incorporates critical control point and hazard analysis systems in more improved form to produce much effective auditable FSMS. This standard endorses conformity of services and products for international trading by assuring about reliability, food quality, and food safety.Practical applicationsThe role exploration of Food Safety Management System (FSMS) in implementing food safety throughout the food production and supply chain is reviewed in this paper. The goal “once certified, accepted worldwide” of Globe Food Safety Initiative theme discussed to help industries and researchers. ISO 22000 along with its sister standards are auditable, reliable, and reasonable to ensure safe production, distribution, and consumption of food. During review of literature it is revealed that all technical aspects and requirements to implement the FSMS are not discussed on one place and thus leading to confusion. The aim of this review is to discuss different requirements, documentations, and systems in place for the certification of standards and the article will be helpful for the industries, technocrats, academicians, researchers, and policy framers.

PROTOCOL: Impact of the food environment on diet-related health outcomes in school-age children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

Improving the regional organization of food flow requires an understanding of system constraints. System transformation is necessary if the system is to include regional, independent wholesale food suppliers and to distribute food in an equitable and sustainable manner. Regional suppliers play a pivotal role in overall food system resilience, an emerging issue in wake of the numerous failures in conventional food supply chains exacerbated by COVID-19-related disruptions. Yet alternative supply chains that link local producers with towns and urban centers regionally, represent a small fraction of our nation's food suppliers. They struggle to compete with larger distribution networks that can supply products in-and out-of-season by global procurement. The upper Midwest harbors numerous local and regional food supply chains consisting of farms, processors, trucking companies, wholesalers and other firms that share a commitment to sustainability and local economic development. A constellation of challenges hamper their emergence, however, even as larger scale food supply chains flounder or fail to effectively serve communities. Informed by Donella Meadows's work on leverage points for systemic change, a collaborative, transdisciplinary and systems research effort examined conventional food supply networks and identified key opportunities for shifting food supply chain relationships. System concepts such as stock and flow, leverage points, and critical thresholds helped us to frame and identify challenges and opportunities in the current system. The second and third phase of our collaborative research effort occurred over 4 years (2013–2016) and involved twenty-six people in co-generation of knowledge as a loose-knit team. The team included farmers, supply chain practitioners, students, academic staff and faculty from multiple departments and colleges. Our primary method was to host public workshops with practitioner speakers and participants to identify dominant narratives and key concepts within discourses of different participants in distribution networks. The literature review was iterative, based on challenges, ideas and specific questions discussed at workshops. Our research exposed two meta-narratives shaping the supply chain: diversity and efficiency. In addition to these high-leverage narratives, we identified and examined five key operational thresholds in the Upper Midwest regional food system that could be leveraged to improve food flow in the region. Attention to these areas makes it possible for businesses to operate within environmental limits and develop social structures that can meet scale efficiencies necessary for economic success. We iteratively shared this co-produced knowledge with decision-makers via local food policy councils, local government, and national policy circles with the goal of supplying actionable information. This phased action research project created the environment necessary for a group of food system entrepreneurs to emerge and collaborate, poised to improve system resilience in anticipation of food system disruptions. It forms the basis for on-going research on food flow, regional resilience, and supply chain policy.

Food losses and waste (FLW) reduction and mitigating climate impact in food chains are priorities in achieving sustainable development goals. However, many FLW-reducing interventions induce additional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for example, from energy, fuel, or packaging. The net effect of such interventions (expressed in GHG emissions per unit of food available for consumption) is not obvious, as is illustrated in a number of case studies. We recommend that in the decision to take on FLW-reducing interventions, the trade-offs on sustainability impacts (such as GHG emissions) are taken into consideration. Since FLW induce demand and extra operations in all stages along a supply chain, adequate representation of cumulative GHG emissions along the production and supply chain, including ‘hidden parts’ of the chain, is required, which is challenging in full LCA studies. As a workaround, the case studies in this paper are based on a generic tool, the Agro-Chain greenhouse gas Emission (ACE) calculator that includes metrics and data for common food product categories and supply chain typologies. The calculator represents the structure of a generic (fresh food) supply chain and offers data sets for, amongst others, crop GHG emission factors and FLW in different stages of the production and distribution chain. Through scenario calculations with different chain parameters (describing pre and post-intervention scenarios), the net effects of an intervention on GHG emissions and FLW per unit of food sold to the consumer can be compared with little effort. In the case studies, interventions at the production stage as well as in post-harvest operations, are analyzed. Results show that post-harvest activities (especially FLW) contribute substantially to the carbon footprint of supplied food products. The FLW-reducing interventions are considered to induce additional GHG emissions. In most case studies, FLW-reducing interventions lower total GHG associated with a unit of food supplied to a client or consumer. However, in one case study, the extra emissions due to the intervention were higher than the prevented emission from lowering food losses. Consequently, in the latter case, the intervention is not an effective GHG emission reduction intervention.

Global food supply chains have been constantly challenged by various food safety incidents or crisis. Traditional approaches on enhancing robustness of the food supply chain are not sufficient to ensure a safe food supply to the society, while building resilience as a more comprehensive approach has shown to be a good alternative option. With a resilience thinking, the food supply chain is not targeting to achieve a state of zero food safety risks, but rather to pursue the capacity to adapt and manage food safety shocks. A resilient food supply chain can still be vulnerable under the constant pressure of food safety hazards and the changing food chain environment, but has the capacity to adapt to and recover from the shocks. This study aimed to1) provide a clear definition for resilient food supply chains in the context of food safety; 2) provide a procedure to assess food safety resilience; 3) specify how a resilient food supply chain can be quantified and improved by providing a numerical example in a case study. Three dimensions of resilience factors, being time, degree of impacts caused by the food safety shocks, and degree of recovery, are suggested for assessing supply chain resilience. Results of a case study on Salmonella spp. in the pork supply chain show that the proposed framework and modelling allow for selecting the most effective strategies (having alternative suppliers, enhancing animal resilience as examples for the considered case) for improving the resilience of the supply chain for food safety.

Food ingredient fraud and economically motivated adulteration are emerging risks, but a comprehensive compilation of information about known problematic ingredients and detection methods does not currently exist. The objectives of this research were to collect such information from publicly available articles in scholarly journals and general media, organize into a database, and review and analyze the data to identify trends. The results summarized are a database that will be published in the US Pharmacopeial Convention's Food Chemicals Codex, 8th edition, and includes 1305 records, including 1000 records with analytical methods collected from 677 references. Olive oil, milk, honey, and saffron were the most common targets for adulteration reported in scholarly journals, and potentially harmful issues identified include spices diluted with lead chromate and lead tetraoxide, substitution of Chinese star anise with toxic Japanese star anise, and melamine adulteration of high protein content foods. High-performance liquid chromatography and infrared spectroscopy were the most common analytical detection procedures, and chemometrics data analysis was used in a large number of reports. Future expansion of this database will include additional publically available articles published before 1980 and in other languages, as well as data outside the public domain. The authors recommend in-depth analyses of individual incidents. This report describes the development and application of a database of food ingredient fraud issues from publicly available references. The database provides baseline information and data useful to governments, agencies, and individual companies assessing the risks of specific products produced in specific regions as well as products distributed and sold in other regions. In addition, the report describes current analytical technologies for detecting food fraud and identifies trends and developments.

Chapter 4 - Food and beverage industry supply chains