Private Food Safety Standards Research Articles

Consumer’s Awareness and Willingness to Pay for Aflatoxin-Free Sunflower Oil from Four Selected Regions in Tanzania

This study aimed to answer two objectives: assessing consumer awareness of aflatoxin contamination in food and their willingness to pay (WTP) for aflatoxin-free sunflower oil, and investigating the factors influencing consumers’ WTP a premium price for aflatoxin-free sunflower oil. A total of 480 consumers were randomly selected from four towns, and the towns were selected based on the level of aflatoxin contamination incidences: Dodoma (low awareness) and Iringa (high awareness) (towns with high contamination), and Dar es Salaam (low awareness) and Morogoro (high awareness) (towns with low incidence). To elicit consumers’ willingness to pay for aflatoxin-free food, we used the multiple price list technique (MPL) to assess WTP for sunflower oil which is aflatoxin-free and sunflower oil which has not been tested to be aflatoxin-free. Furthermore, an interval regression model was used to estimate WTP and factors influencing WTP a premium price for aflatoxin-free sunflower oil. We found that consumers were willing to pay a premium price for aflatoxin-free sunflower oil. Consumers had a WTP for a premium of up to 1043 TZS for 1 L of aflatoxin-free sunflower oil. However, the premium varies in the different regions. Consumers from towns with a high incidence of aflatoxin contamination have a WTP of up to 357 TZS, while those from towns with a low incidence of aflatoxin contamination but high awareness have a WTP of up to 1043 TZS. Furthermore, the study finds that education, age, gender, and consumer awareness of aflatoxin contamination have a significant influence on the WTP for sunflower oil free of aflatoxin contamination. This study sheds light to stakeholders involved in the production, marketing, and monitoring of food safety and standards. For the public sector, to maximize consumer welfare, policies to ensure the delivery of safe and healthy food are important, while for the private sector, there is an opportunity to tap into the gap for supplying food with private food safety standards.

The market for private food safety certifications: Conceptual framework, review, and future research directions

AbstractSince the inception of private food safety standards in the late 1990s, producers, processors, retailers, and governments have been increasingly relying on them to provide assurances to food safety. This article first develops a conceptual framework for the market of private food safety standards through the lens of agri‐food supply chain logistics, outlining how the key players in the market interact and classifying these interactions into 15 categories. Second, we classify and review studies based on the interactions identified. Our review supports the identification of research gaps in this relatively new, though already important, area of research in contemporary agribusiness.

Valorized Food Processing By-Products in the EU: Finding the Balance between Safety, Nutrition, and Sustainability

Food businesses in the European Union are preparing for a carbon-neutral future by gradually transitioning to a circular way of operating. Building upon results from the EU REFRESH project, we consider the most valuable food processing by-streams in Europe and discuss potential food safety risks that must be considered while valorizing them for human consumption. These risks are weighed against the nutritional benefits offered by these products and their potential applications in food supply chains. Broadly, we examine whether it is possible for spent grains, cheese whey, fruit and vegetable scraps, meat processing waste, and oilseed cakes and meals to be safe, sustainable, and nutritionally valuable at the same time. The discussion highlights that valorizing by-products obtained from food processing operations is feasible on a large scale only if consumers deem it to be a safe and acceptable practice. Extracting valuable compounds from by-products and using them in the preparation of functional foods could be a way to gain consumer acceptance. Furthermore, we find that current EU food safety legislation does not sufficiently accommodate food processing by-products. A way to bridge this regulatory gap could be through the adoption of private food safety standards that have shown proclivity for sustainability-related issues in food supply chains. Finally, by proposing a decision tree, we show that it is indeed feasible for some food processing by-products to be valorized while ensuring sustainability, food safety, and nutritional relevance.

European private food safety standards in global agri-food supply chains: a systematic review

Private food safety standards have become an important governance mechanism in contemporary food supply chains. While much has been written about private standards from the perspectives of different academic fields, there has never been a dedicated literature review to examine their interaction with global food supply chains. In this systematic review, 45 peer reviewed articles on private food standards, selected through extensive searches in four academic databases are critically appraised. Our analysis reveals that the most studied European private food safety standards are owned by retail conglomerates and therefore place the retail sector in a position of influence in the supply chain. These standards influence supply chain structures, market access, and the efficiency of food safety management systems. They also challenge the traditional relationship shared by actors in the supply chain with public authorities and the World Trade Organization. In the recent years, their scope has expanded to include topical issues such as environmental sustainability, worker safety, and animal welfare. Overall, the review suggests that European private food safety standards alter the operations of modern agri-food supply chains to accommodate consumer wishes while allowing the retail sector to exert its influence without taking on additional legal and economic liability.

Private food safety standards in the global food supply chain: a scoping review protocol.

The objective of this review is to examine and map the reported forms, process functions, and objectives associated with private food safety standards to draw conclusions for public health nutrition. One pressing public health nutrition issue is the need for a healthier food supply to reduce diet-related risk factors for non-communicable diseases. Many organizations are involved in private food safety and/or nutrition standards that govern their food supply. With few published data on private nutrition standards, understanding the motivations behind enacting private food safety standards as a means of gaining authority may elucidate strategic opportunities of interest for the public health nutrition audience. This could positively affect the use of private standards and nutritional quality of packaged foods. Articles to be considered must focus on private food safety standards, which principally relate to the supply chain of packaged food for retail sale, in any country. In this group, the standard is largely invisible to consumers, and the dominant actors are private firms. Concepts of interest are the evolution, key drivers, regulatory form, function, objective and incentive for involvement in standard setting, adoption, implementation, conformity and enforcement of private food safety standards. An extensive search of multiple databases and official websites to source gray literature will be undertaken to identify articles of any design, reports and conference proceedings in English from 2008 to present. Selection, screening and data synthesis will follow JBI methodology. Data extraction will be undertaken using an extraction tool developed for this scoping review.

Značaj i uloga privatnih standarda bezbednosti hrane

Private food quality and safety management standards are, as a rule, voluntary standards. However, as it is necessary to verify the competence of certification bodies (those controlling producers and participants in the food supply chain) by the accreditation bodies and the standard owners, this is not a case for self-regulation. A modern regulatory state, which is not an exclusive market regulator, recognizes the importance and role of private standards. In the past two decades, a specific public-private partnership has emerged between the public authorities, the owners of standards and mediators in the certification process. The purpose of this paper is to portray the role of international private food safety standards in the field of risk protection, as well as to draw attention to the basic requirements for effective implementation of those standards.

INTERNATIONAL DIFFUSION OF FOOD SAFETY STANDARDS: THE ROLE OF DOMESTIC CERTIFIERS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

AbstractWe examined the cross-national adoption of six major private food safety standards, focusing on the role of certifiers and international trade. Results show that the number of certification bodies existing in the domestic country, food exports, and the proportion of food exports to North America had positive effects on a country's adoption of food safety standards. Distance leads to product differentiation for the standards and therefore disadvantages developing countries in Africa and Asia for adopting the standards, which are all based in the United States or Europe. Providing these countries with better access to certifiers can alleviate this geographic disadvantage.

Private Food Safety Standards, Obligations of Governments, and Unresolved Questions in Contemporary WTO Law

The rapid proliferation of private standard schemes has attracted the attention of numerous experts and policy-makers, and proved to be a sensitive issue for developing and developed countries. Though these standards are not legally binding, they occasionally constitute 'industry norms' and significantly constrain retailers and producers, thus influencing trade flows. Such impacts on international trade and the multiplication of schemes led some countries and economic operators (particularly of developing countries and small-medium-sized enterprises) to raise certain concerns. Since 2005, WTO bodies have discussed these and other issues which have proved to be controversial. This initial paper aims to address several legal questions regarding private standards, particularly those relating to the scope of WTO member states' obligations under the SPS Agreement. International economic legal doctrine has not yet developed a coherent doctrine regarding the duties of states regarding private economic operators and the extent to which relevant rules deriving from the ILC Articles on State Responsibility should be applied. Consequently, this paper briefly reviews the SPS Agreement's provisions (particularly Articles 1 and 13), some GATT/WTO jurisprudence regarding member states' duties relating to acts undertaken by private actors, (prominently Japan -- Film), and the relevant provisions of the ILC Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (prominently Articles 4, 5, 8, 11). An analysis of Article 13 of the SPS Agreement indicates that while it does not impose direct obligations on private standard-setting entities, the ordinary meaning of the text suggests that the latter bodies are covered by this provision. Accordingly, WTO members are bound to employ reasonable measures available to them in order to ensure that private-standard setting bodies operating in their territories comply with the relevant provisions of the SPS Agreement. As elaborated below, this interpretation of Article 13 is also consistent with other provisions of the SPS Agreement, the general aims of the WTO as well as with the need to cope with recent trends in the international economic system. Specific obligations imposed on WTO members in this context may be informed by the 'due diligence' principle in international customary law. In light of the elusive nature of this latter principle, the significant question is what kind of measures are to be undertaken by governments in order to satisfy this requirement? WTO members may implement this moderate obligation through a broad range of measures, and in light of the early stage of this research-work, the paper offers only several examples.

Food Safety and Developing Markets: Research Findings and Research Gaps

To better inform donor support for public food safety interventions, this paper reviews the literature on the impact of more stringent food safety standards on developing-country markets. This literature has primarily focused on the market access and economic implications of higher standards in export markets rather than on the extensive debate around market failure and public health benefits that dominates the literature in developed countries. We find that the market access benefits from compliance with public and private food safety standards are clear, as is the market exclusion that results from noncompliance. These benefits are now well documented, with more recent evidence pointing to added benefits of poverty reduction and spillovers for health and productivity. Rigorous evidence is also found concerning the positive role of technical assistance and public or donor support. Most of the literature, however, has focused on the relatively small market for EU horticultural products, which will provide opportunities for only a fraction of developing-country producers. This narrow focus causes important gaps in the literature informing meaningful public roles in addressing food safety in developing countries. Future research should examine and rigorously evaluate alternative models for how best to support improved food safety management outside of the export channels that have been the focus of the literature thus far. Further, evaluating the impact of public-private approaches on reduction in enforcement costs and improving compliance through supporting industry-led efforts would better inform donor support for food safety reforms, as would research among developing-country consumers with respect to food safety reforms and public health.

Standards for Development: Food Safety and Sustainability in Wal‐Mart's Honduran Produce Supply Chains

AbstractPublic‐private partnerships between supermarket retailers and development agencies help small‐scale producers reach growing domestic markets in developing countries. Drawing on qualitative data that focuses on relationships between producers, development agencies, and Wal‐Mart‐owned supermarkets in Honduras, the research presented here demonstrates how, by introducing food safety standards to development agencies' outreach efforts, but without necessarily certifying producers or offering a price premium, Wal‐Mart uses these standards to simultaneously differentiate production practices by promoting quality, while maintaining a standardized market. As a result, the responsibility and costs for incentivizing growers to change their practices is shifted to nongovernmental organizations. Therefore, although an extensive body of literature describes standards and third‐party certification systems as the means for corporations to control production practices, this research indicates that public‐private partnerships are a new vehicle by which corporations can influence agricultural production practices. In addition, this article argues that the inclusion of food safety standards in development projects leads to the conflation of food safety and sustainability, without adequately interrogating which agroecological processes food safety standards include and exclude. Therefore, retailers' private food safety standards dominate how sustainability is perceived and practiced in the development context.

Private Food Safety and Quality Standards in International Trade

Trade liberalisation is a factor that induced a change in policy and development strategy, the substitution of imports by export in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. This transition has led to the involvement of a large number of producers in export activities and in global or regional supply chains. Many food supply chains span across countries or regions and involve a variety of different operators. Ensuring food safety and production quality, processing and trading practices all along these global chains is a real challenge.

Private roles in food safety provision: the law and economics of private food safety

Private food safety standards play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of the foods we consume. A voluntary instrument, private standards are so widespread to have become de facto mandatory for suppliers who wish to access the most profitable markets. Developed by retailers and business coalitions and enforced through third-party certification, private food safety standards constitute one of the principal food safety governance instruments of agribusiness value chains. Albeit private and voluntary, such standards have profound public implications because they contribute to food safety and protect consumers’ health. This article uses law and economics theory to identify their strengths and vulnerabilities and understand the relationship between public and private regulation. Specifically, it examines whether private standards can fulfill the public interest objective of protecting consumers’ health and whether they compete with or rather complement public regulation. The article argues that private standards have emerged in response to food scares to coordinate complex food value chains and have become ever more relevant in the context of intense market globalization, an area in which public regulation often failed. Among the advantages of private standards, are their flexibility and ability to rapidly respond to new risks. Through their focus on management-based regulation and strong market incentives for producers, private standards promote compliance better than traditional inspection methods. Private standards also present several gray areas including increased risk of capture due to their limited transparency and gaps in enforcement by third-party certifiers. The article suggests areas that deserve additional scrutiny, especially the opacity of standards vis-a-vis consumers and the public sector and the quality and reliability of third party certification.

PRIVATE FOOD SAFETY AND QUALITY STANDARDS: FACILITATING OR FRUSTRATING FRESH PRODUCE GROWERS?

Global private food safety and quality standards have undergone some major overhauls over the past two decades with an increasing emphasis on harmonisation. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmarking process is an efficient model to measure compliance which contributes to harmonising future food safety standards. While GFSI attempts to harmonise retail standards are commendable and elegant in principle, in practice, retailers continue to support their own standards. It is difficult to see retailers giving up on their own standards and the control they currently exert as chain captains. Although there are advantages in harmonising the standards and reducing certification costs, there is a need to ensure inspection costs are competitive. There is also the risk that too much harmonisation will result in private standards losing their individuality and uniqueness. Amidst the struggle for private standard dominance, alternative approaches to risk management are emerging in a similar way to how insurance risks are calculated for business. As such, certification of standards could disappear in favour of a more general risk and insurance model. This risk based approach could also lead to the effective implementation of co-regulation, where both public and private sector compliances are addressed together. This paper reviews the public-private food standards trend over the past 20 years, considers the implications and future trends in cultivating fresh produce, especially for smallholder farmers, and explores the possibility of co-regulatory coordination between publicprivate sectors and the potential of a risk-based insurance model for food and farming

Public and Private Food Safety Standards: Facilitating or Frustrating Fresh Produce Growers?

Global private food safety and quality standards have undergone some major overhauls during the past two decades, and these will continue to evolve with the recent emphasis on harmonization. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) attempts to ensure that harmonize retail standards are commendable and elegant in principle, but in practice, retailers continue to demand their own standard, whilst supporting GFSI’s benchmarking program. It is difficult to see such retailers giving up their own standards and the control they currently exert as chain captains. There is also the risk that too much harmonization will result in these standards losing their individuality and uniqueness. Amidst the struggle for private standard dominance, alternative approaches to risk management (e.g., self-assessment of risk, independent audits and risk ranking) may be the way forward, similar to how insurance risks are calculated for businesses. Furthermore, this risk-based approach could also lead to the effective implementation of co-regulation, where both public and private sector compliances are addressed together—a win-win situation. This paper considers the implications and future trends of fresh produce farming, and identifies five interventions (i.e., assurance schemes), which include the do-nothing scenario to underpinning one’s brand or label with an existing scheme.

Reconciling Safety and Fairness in Global Agri-Food Standardization

Private food safety standards have recently emerged as a dynamic power in the global value chan. Good agricultural practices (GAP) is one such standard currently gaining popularity as a prominent field-level food quality assurance system. Achieving private GAP certification, most notably of GlobalGAP, is a dif ficult option for low income producers in the Global South due to the high costs required for necessary investments and certification. This paper critically analyzes the ethical implications of private food safety standards in light of three theoretical perspectives from environmental sociology: ecological moderniza tion, risk society, and eco-socialism. It then examines the potential of public GAP schemes currently emerging in the Global South for reconciling safety and fairness in global agri-food standardization. It is suggested that the expansion of producer participation in public GAP program be regulated by gradual improvements in the state capacity of resource mobilization for auditing and extension institutions.

The Interplay of Public and Private Standards: Literature Review Series on the Impacts of Private Standards, Part III

The question on how public and private standards interact constitutes relatively new research terrain and has received limited attention. This particularly applies to social and environmental standards where the majority of research focuses on the interplay of private and public forestry standards. Interdependencies between public and private food safety and quality standards have been more closely analyzed, though only in the past decade or so. Overall, there is a multitude of competing public and private standards that are rarely harmonized, and sometimes complement, but often duplicate each other. Many regulatory functions are performed by public and private actors creating a situation that is inefficient when it comes to achieving policy goals. Yet again, it is small producers that are hit most by the current situation of a ‘dysfunctional interplay’ of public and private standards. Urgent measures need to be taken to create more complementarities and harmonization among private standards and between private and public standards. This approach would address the root of the problem (multitude of standards) instead of trying to treat the symptoms (exporters’ exclusion from international trade).

Convergence of US and EU Production Practices Under the New FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

AbstractPrivate standards relating to food safety have become an important element in trade in fresh fruit and vegetables, particularly in Europe. Discussions of the positive and negative impacts of such standards on farmers in developing countries are associated with the way they are implemented and enforced, with particular emphasis being placed on how these standards introduce prescriptive controls at the farm level backed up by audit and third‐party certification. Enactment in the United States of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) in January 2011 adds a new element to the discussion of private standards. The Act mandates the introduction of risk‐based controls on domestic farms for fruits and vegetables deemed high risk. It also places an obligation on food importers to ensure that their suppliers observe equivalent levels of safety controls. The FSMA is likely to lead to farm‐level controls and certification as seen with private food safety standards as they have developed in Europe.

Crossfire: ‘Private standards are an unnecessary additional barrier to trade that exclude small-scale producers and processors in the developing world’

Dear Ulrich, The last decade has witnessed the multiplication of private standards and certification schemes in the food sector, largely because of food safety scares and increasing sustainability concerns. These standards impose additional requirements on producers beyond those of governments, which are often based on international standards, for instance the Codex Alimentarius. For me as a consumer, many private food safety standards seem to be unnecessary. They do not address my issues of concern. First, it is unclear whether higher standards for traceability and food safety do in fact increase food safety or food quality in general. Cucumbers

Are Mauritian fishery exporters minding the standards gap?

Recent literature has provided evidence that exporters of agro-food products from developing countries experience problems in meeting sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures of developed countries. The objective of this paper is to determine whether fishery products exporters from Mauritius, a southern African small island developing state, also face similar issues. It first provides an overview of fishery products exports from Mauritius, before reviewing SPS requirements facing exporters. This paper finally reports on the findings of a survey conducted among Mauritian fish exporters to assess the importance of SPS measures as a factor affecting exports. Results show that SPS requirements have not acted as a major barrier for Mauritian exports to the European market but in fact have provided them with a competitive edge. It was, however, acknowledged that SPS requirements and private voluntary standards, to a smaller extent, were increasing in importance. The most important reported factors affecting exports are freight, and other direct export costs. The findings also show that the majority of fishery exporters have adopted a reactive compliance strategy. It is therefore proposed that Mauritian exporters should adopt a more proactive approach in their compliance strategy, increasingly moving towards new market opportunities such as private food safety standards.

High-Value Agricultural Products and Poverty Reduction: Smallholder Farmer Access to Maize Markets

Staple commodities can be turned into high-value agricultural products (HVAPs) through a process of product differentiation. Using three high-value maize products as examples—sweet corn (Zea mays L.), baby corn, and green maize—this article illustrates the growing importance of maize as a vegetable crop. It highlights the challenges that need to be overcome to fulfill the potential pro-poor impact of the growing demand for high-value maize products. Smallholder farmers' access to high-value markets is often stymied by their having to meet strict phytosanitary standards and private food safety standards. Successful farmer access to HVAP markets depends on how the value chains are structured, the relationship between chain actors, and the judicious mix of public and private provision of business development services. The failure of perception of maize's multiple products and lack of recognition of the transaction costs that farmers face in accessing maize high-value markets have important implications for crop improvement, the seed industry, and policy if maize and other agricultural crops are to contribute more to poverty reduction and farmers' livelihood security.