Food Scandals Research Articles

The Attractive Power of Rural Destinations and a Synergistic Community Cooperative Approach: A “Tourismability” Case

The recent climate change, food scandals, pollution and work-related stress, are affecting life in big cities and tourism is suffering changes expanding its typical boundaries. The past decades were characterized by the tourism choice of exotic destinations; nowadays, a route inversion would be visible and remote and inner destinations are acquiring value and attractiveness. According to this perspective, administrators and event organizers are planning and structuring strategies ensuring memorable experiences for the tourists. In the sense of sustainable development, important aspects are cooperative approaches and capability to integrate traditions and expectations. The proposed research work focuses the attention on the analysis of 15 semi-structured interviews through SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and perception analysis on an event called “Dream of a night…to that town” provided by the Municipality of Colobraro, Basilicata Region (Italy). The proposition of the research would focus the attention on a case study able to form not a top-down/bottom-up, but a horizontal strategy, a sharable best practice for the whole tourism sector in rural areas that would make truly effective the State decentralization, in which the small communities’ activism configures crucial source of competitiveness. The case proposed, contrasting modern lifestyles and common tourism choice, would be able to redirect the concept of attractiveness in privileging remote places that could offer memorable tourism experiences. So, a promotional “tourismability” strategy, integrating agricultural connotates of the territory with heritage, traditions, myths and legends, through a synergistic community cooperative approach, would be necessary to constitute an identitary, attractive, memorable and immersive tourism experience in rural areas.

Developing and Maintaining Public Trust During and Post-COVID-19: Can We Apply a Model Developed for Responding to Food Scares?

Trust in public health officials and the information they provide is essential for the public uptake of preventative strategies to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. This paper discusses how a model for developing and maintaining trust in public health officials during food safety incidents and scandals might be applied to pandemic management. The model identifies ten strategies to be considered, including: transparency; development of protocols and procedures; credibility; proactivity; putting the public first; collaborating with stakeholders; consistency; education of stakeholders and the public; building your reputation; and keeping your promises. While pandemic management differs insofar as the responsibility lies with the public rather than identifiable regulatory bodies, and governments must weigh competing risks in creating policy, we conclude that many of the strategies identified in our trust model can be successfully applied to the maintenance of trust in public health officials prior to, during, and after pandemics.

Chinese consumers’ risk mitigating strategies against food fraud

Food fraud is prevalent in China and the increasing number of reported cases undermined the credibility of food safety authorities and the agri-food industry. Food scandals have caused Chinese consumers to be anxious and distrustful of local food products. Urban consumers have resorted to domestic risk mitigating strategies to identify fraudulent food products. This study aims to investigate the risk mitigating strategies against food fraud adopted by urban and rural consumers. Semi-structured interviews (n = 31) were conducted to collect data from urban and rural consumers in Beijing and Hebei, China. Three thematic domains and nine sub-themes were identified from the data set. There was a general sense of insecurity, anxiety and disapproval about the state of food products in the country. This has driven distrust in the food system, hence Chinese consumers have developed risk mitigating strategies against purchasing and consuming fraudulent food products. The three main coping approaches include purchasing decision making, information searching & sharing and daily self-preservation strategies. This is the first study to provide new empirical findings on rural consumers’ experiences in dealing with fraudulent products and their risk mitigating strategies against food fraud.

Establishing confidence in food safety: is traceability a solution in consumers’ eyes?

Consumers have become increasingly concerned about food safety due to numerous food scandals and incidents over the past two decades. Consequently, they demand to be informed of the processes involved along the food supply chain. Employing a traceability system, tracing food from ‘farm to fork’, has been embraced by the food industries and governments as an important tool to restore and increase consumers’ confidence in food safety. However, there is limited research examining consumers’ perceptions of, and confidence in, the food traceability system to fulfil the role of ensuring food safety. To bridge the knowledge gap, we conducted an online survey of 489 consumers from three major Australian cities. The results suggested that although participants had a great desire to know how their food was produced and handled, it was their understanding of, and confidence in, food traceability systems that strongly predicted their willingness to pay (WTP) for having their food traced. Participants also indicated that, in comparison to locally produced food products, it was more important to have imported food products traced. However, paradoxically, the information provided by the traceability system of imported food products was less trusted. The results highlight that, in order to use the food traceability system to gain consumer trust in food safety, it is critical to inform consumers how the system works to build their confidence in the system.

Managing supply chain visibility: The challenges of the UK food sector

The growing number of food scandals across the globe has highlighted the importance of supply chain visibility (SCV) in the food supply chain in recent years. As a result, a number of research studies have focused on identifying the key enablers and barriers of SCV. Most of these studies, however, have concentrated on one or two aspects of SCV, and a comprehensive overview of SCV issues is still missing. This paper therefore attempts to address this research gap by identifying key enablers, challenges and benefits as well as empirically validating them. The paper provides evidence from the UK food sector which is scant in the literature. It also offers practitioners key insights from the UK food sector and its current level of awareness towards SCV implementation. The findings of this paper are based on 100 valid survey responses from UK food manufacturers.

Consumer legal protection in the EU

Consumer protection is a very wide-ranging issue and needs to be given due attention. It concerns the safety of consumers in the environment of individual countries of the world, it concerns the consumer safety of certain groups, such as the European Union. The basic frameworks of consumer protection are set by the guidelines of world organizations - the UN, WHO, but also the European Union and individual member states. In the area of consumer protection, attention is paid to major health problems caused by unsuitable food, such as food scandals, various types of diseases - mad cow disease, swine fever, covid 19.

Leaching of melamine and cyanuric acid from melamine-based tableware at different temperatures and water-based simulants

Abstract Following food scandals involving melamine during 2007–2008, health risks from human exposure to this compound received worldwide attention. Since then several studies have reported sources of melamine exposure in humans. In this pilot study, leaching of melamine and cyanuric acid from melamine-based bowls was tested under normal cooking conditions. Four brands of melamine bowls (n = 10) were purchased randomly from among many similar products available in the market. Water-based simulants were used in leaching tests under four conditions; water at room temperature (25 °C), hot water (90–100 °C), 1% acetic acid in water (v/v), and 10% methanol in water (v/v). The concentrations of melamine leached from bowls were reported on the basis of the surface area that came in contact with the leaching solution. The highest concentration of melamine leached was 0.37–70.2 ng/cm2 found in hot water, followed by water at room temperature (

Everyday strategies for handling food safety concerns: a qualitative study of distrust, contradictions, and helplessness among Taiwanese women

Past research has provided evidence of the important role that trust plays in people’s decisions regarding food consumption. This study examines the reasons for people’s distrust in food production systems and how they conceptualise and handle food-related risks in everyday life in a context in which food scandals have occurred frequently. In-depth interviews were conducted with 39 married Taiwanese women. Our findings indicated that the women believed that collusion commonly occurs between business and government entities and that such collusion frequently leads to food scandals. However, despite their distrust in the food system and suspicion towards the government, the women generally still relied on food labels and certifications when making food purchasing decisions. These ‘in-between’ strategies were formed by their knowledge and experiences of day-to-day living in Taiwan, and while the strategies may seem somewhat self-contradictory, they can be understood as empowering people to protect themselves and their families in circumstances of general distrust and helplessness.

Are social embeddedness associated with food risk perception under media coverage?

Traceability system has received wide attention in solving food safety issues, via which food information could be tracked back to producer/farmers. Consumers need to obtain this information from producers or social networks, trust in the information, and consequently assess perceived risks, especially when food scandals are exposed to the media. In this study, we introduce the social embeddedness theory to understand how consumers' social activities affect their risk perceptions on traceable food. Specifically, we investigate how risk perceptions are predicted by the interpersonal relationships, organizational level and social-level relationships. Results show that the interpersonal relationships were associated with lower levels of risk perceptions, while organizational and social relationships impacted consumer's risk perceptions at middle and higher levels, respectively. Results also show that the “ripple effect” extended to effect of risk events with negative information, however, did not exist for the group exposed to positive information. Potential food safety implications have been proposed to identify for effective risk mitigation under media coverages.

Veterinary Responsibilities within the One Health Framework

Veterinarians play an essential role in the animal-based food chain. They are professionally responsible for the health of farm animals to secure food safety and public health. In the last decades, food scandals and zoonotic disease outbreaks have shown how much animal and human health are entangled. Therefore, the concept of One Health is broadly promoted within veterinary medicine. The profession embraces this idea that the health of humans, animals and the environment is inextricably linked and supports the related call for transdisciplinary collaboration. Especially in zoonotic disease control, the benefits of the cooperation between veterinarians and human doctors seem evident. However, applying a One Health approach also makes moral problems explicit. For instance, how should veterinarians deal with situations in which measures to protect public health negatively affect animal health? This creates a conflict of professional responsibilities. To deal with such moral problems and to strengthen the veterinarian’s position, the starting point is a holistic perspective on One Health. We will argue for an ‘encapsulated health’ argument: the best way to safeguard human health is to promote the health of animals and the environment. This also holds for the responsibility of the veterinary profession: to serve public health, the central responsibility of veterinarians should be to be experts in animal health and welfare. We elaborate this point by using a case study on the role of the veterinary profession in antimicrobial resistance policies in the Netherlands.

How do consumers search for and process corporate social responsibility information on food companies’ websites?

The importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication for food companies has grown substantially ever since global action plans such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals have begun targeting topics which are highly relevant to food companies. Furthermore, various food scandals have caused consumers to question current food production methods, leading to a search for more information on ethical production methods. However, it is not known how consumers search for and process information on websites as one relevant CSR communication channel. The objective of this study is to develop requirements for consumer-aligned CSR communication on corporate websites. Information search and processing was examined through consumers’ navigation behavior on websites and by conducting think-aloud protocols. The findings of this study suggest companies provide comprehensive information that can easily be filtered. Furthermore, companies should present specific information to credibly distance themselves from greenwashing accusations, e.g. by referring to external evidence.

Consumers´ awareness of food safety

Eating food is one of the most important needs of every person, so their safety and quality should be crucial for everyone. People expect, that food they eat is hygienically and health safe. Unfortunately, people usually start to focus on food safety only when various food scandals are exposed and it is too late. Mass consumption of food is the cause of a high risk to human health, but only in the case of harmful food. Food-borne diseases are a common and widespread phenomenon in all parts of the world, regardless of the economic development of the country. Protection of human, animal and plant health is one of the main economic priorities of each country. The political objective of the European Union is therefore to ensure that European Union citizens have access to safe and nutritious foods, so it must meet strict safety standards. In ensuring food safety, it is necessary to take into account all aspects of the food production chain as a whole, because each subject can have a potential impact on food safety. This paper deals with the issues of food safety and food quality. The main objective was to find out how consumers perceive higher quality food and whether they read information included on the food packaging. Primary data were obtained from a survey that was conducted on the sample of 478 respondents living in Slovakia. For a deeper analysis, several assumptions, which were verified by Friedman Test, Chi-Square Test of Independence, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test, were formulated. The survey has found out that 84% of respondents buy higher quality food and 60% purchase them because of health-related reasons. More than half of respondents search for the information about food safety on the Internet and the same percentage considere government as the most reliable source of information about food safety. Unfortunately, just more than one quarter of them read the information on food label and for 34% is this information unsufficient.

Moral imaginings of the market and the state in contemporary China

In contemporary China, the site of endemic food scandals and persistent anxiety about the quality and safety of products, moral imaginings of the market implicate state actors and institutions. In articulating perceived injustices, Chinese consumer‐citizens resort not to the “mutual rights and obligations” of buyers and sellers specified in the Consumer Law but to ideals of fairness that include the role of the state in regulating the market. The law defines the normative rights and obligations of consumers and sellers, but citizens largely reject this depoliticized formulation, instead expressing expectations of state action that mirror a moral economy framework. This understanding of the persistence of fake and dangerous goods as a manifestation of poor governance allows for a rereading of Marx's famous maxim. For Marx, the commodity disguises an exploitative relationship between buyers and sellers, but in societies characterized by industrial production, the state mediates interactions between producers and consumers through regulation and the law. Demands from Chinese consumer‐citizens that the state curtail the production and sale of fake and dangerous goods and punish bad actors reveal an understanding of the modern state's role in the production of the commodity. They also illustrate the importance of the historical context of the state–citizen relationship in framing moral claims.

Chinese consumer's attitudes, perceptions and behavioural responses towards food fraud

Regulation of food systems exists to ensure safety and enhance consumer confidence in the food which they purchase and consume. However, some regulatory systems fail to instil public confidence. In China for example, trust in the domestic food system is low as a consequence of multiple high-profile food scandals, many of which linked to food fraud. Fraud occurs when food is intentionally adulterated for economic gain and may, but not always, pose a risk to the safety of food. Food authenticity and quality may also be compromised. The focus of this research relates to how Chinese consumers perceive food fraud and make choices in the absence of trust in regulatory systems. Seven focus groups with middle class Chinese participants in tier 1 and 2 cities (Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu) were conducted to explore attitudes of and perception towards food fraud. Infant milk formula, olive oil and Scotch whisky were used as prompts for attitudinal and perceptual elicitation. The findings indicated that Chinese consumers consider food fraud to represent a food hazard that poses a threat to the authenticity, quality and reliability of food and increased the risk of purchasing and consuming of unsafe food. Consumers were found to rely on informal kinship networks as trusted sources of information regarding food products' authenticity and safety. Behavioural responses included a range of risk relieving strategies to support food purchasing judgements, in the perceived absence of regulatory protection, that included: pre-purchase and consumption information seeking; the use of product attributes as authenticity cues; carefully selected acquisition sources; as well as a range of domestically-situated food practices. The strategic implications for food companies and policy are discussed.

Authentication of edible fats and oils by non-targeted 13C INEPT NMR spectroscopy

Further to recent food scandals, consumers have become increasingly concerned about the quality and integrity of the processed products they buy and eat. Edible oils contaminations or deliberate adulterations are recurring issues. Until now the lipidic composition of food has not been extensively studied by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy despite the fact that this analytical method can cover a wide range of matrices. The application of a refocused adiabatic 13C INEPT (Insensitive Nuclei Enhanced by Polarization Transfer) sequence has already proved the performance of NMR spectroscopy to discriminate the origins of olive oils. This sequence has been demonstrated to be faster than a classical 13C NMR sequence. In this work, the implementation of that 13C NMR sequence in a routine laboratory has allowed the analysis of 23 common origins of edible oils, as well as butters, margarines and animal fats. We have proven that butter origin could clearly be distinguished from plant oil origins considered in this work. With the example of the verification of palm oil presence in food products, we have demonstrated the applicability of the method to characterize fats origin in transformed products. This study has shown by means of chemometric tools the potential of 13C NMR spectroscopy to check the authenticity of various commercial finished products, using an untargeted approach applied to a spectral database of 294 spectra of raw animal and plant fats and oils. Thanks to spiking tests, the limit of detection of one origin of plant oil in another has been estimated as being around 5% and the limit of detection of animal oil in plant oils has been estimated as being around 2%. The same approach can be applied as a global method to verify the authenticity and integrity of fats and oils.

Critical Factors and Enablers of Food Quality And Safety Compliance Risk Management in the Vietnamese Seafood Supply Chain

Recently, along with the emergence of food scandals, food supply chains have to face with ever-increasing pressure from compliance with food quality and safety regulations and standards. This paper aims to explore critical factors of compliance risk in food supply chain with an illustrated case in Vietnamese seafood industry. To this end, this study takes advantage of both primary and secondary data sources through a comprehensive literature research of industrial and scientific papers, combined with expert interview. Findings showed that there are three main critical factor groups influencing on compliance risk including challenges originating from Vietnamese food supply chain itself, characteristics of regulation and standards, and business environment. Furthermore, author proposed enablers to eliminate compliance risks to food supply chain managers as well as recommendations to government and other influencers and supporters.

Critical Factors and Enablers of Food Quality and Safety Compliance Risk Management in the Vietnamese Seafood Supply Chain

Recently, along with the emergence of food scandals, food supply chains have to face with ever-increasing pressure from compliance with food quality and safety regulations and standards. This paper aims to explore critical factors of compliance risk in food supply chain with an illustrated case in Vietnamese seafood industry. To this end, this study takes advantage of both primary and secondary data sources through a comprehensive literature research of industrial and scientific papers, combined with expert interview. Findings showed that there are three main critical factor groups influencing on compliance risk including challenges originating from Vietnamese food supply chain itself, characteristics of regulation and standards, and business environment. Furthermore, author proposed enablers to eliminate compliance risks to food supply chain managers as well as recommendations to government and other influencers and supporters.

Food safety scandals and their impacts on restaurant customers in Lebanon

The purpose of this research is to study the impact of food safety campaign that was launched by the Lebanese Ministry of Health in 2014 on restaurant clients in Lebanon. First, the food safety concept was defined. Then, a questionnaire was distributed to 812 Lebanese nationals during their visit to one of the restaurants in the geographical area of the study. Findings revealed that there is a clear impact of spoiled food scandals on restaurant goers' behaviour and decisions and that independent restaurants are more affected by the food safety crisis than the ones affiliated to a chain. Moreover, media outlets and social media platforms play a key role in disseminating food safety scandals. The study resulted in many recommendations at the public sector level and the private sector level that need to be adopted in order to reduce the impact of food safety scandals on Lebanese restaurant sector.

CRITICAL FACTORS AND ENABLERS OF FOOD QUALITY AND SAFETY COMPLIANCE RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE VIETNAMESE SEAFOOD SUPPLY CHAIN

Recently, along with the emergence of food scandals, food supply chains have to face with ever-increasing pressure from compliance with food quality and safety regulations and standards. This paper aims to explore critical factors of compliance risk in food supply chain with an illustrated case in Vietnamese seafood industry. To this end, this study takes advantage of both primary and secondary data sources through a comprehensive literature research of industrial and scientific papers, combined with expert interview. Findings showed that there are three main critical factor groups influencing on compliance risk including challenges originating from Vietnamese food supply chain itself, characteristics of regulation and standards, and business environment. Furthermore, author proposed enablers to eliminate compliance risks to food supply chain managers as well as recommendations to government and other influencers and supporters.

Contaminants in Foods of Animal Origin in Cameroon: A One Health Vision for Risk Management "from Farm to Fork".

Foods of animal origin represent an important share in the diet of Cameroonian populations. Cameroon is known to be a food basket in the west and central Africa sub-region, and an important supplier of foods on the international markets. In the meantime, food importation is continuously increasing to meet the high demand of a more westernized segment of the population. Cereals, fish, sea products, eggs, honey, shrimps, chicken, and feed ingredients are important share in the international trade of agricultural products. Few controls are made on the quality and safety of these products. Certain safety standards do exist but are still yet to be enforced. Inspections done so far by regulatory authorities are partial and do not cover important hazards that require laboratory analysis. The increasing awareness of population, the burden of new types of disease, as well as the recurrence of food scandals have recently launched a scientific and population debate on the contribution of foods items, especially those of animal origin, to the toxic exposure of food producing animals and humans. This paper critically reviews the occurrence of toxicants in most consumed foods of animal origin in Cameroon. This study included the most consumed food of animal origin, identified during the national household budget survey and contributing to 8.1% of the total diet of an individual. Data evaluated suggest an important contamination by toxic metals, mycotoxins, veterinary drugs’ residues, and pesticides. The current national legal framework is briefly analyzed to explore possible intervention measures in the frame of the One Health approach.