Food safety and network governance structure of the agri-food system

Abstract

The problem background of food quality and safetyOver the last decades, citizens, consumers and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about the challenges related to the agri-food system such as food security, food quality and safety, the free and informed choice of consumers, animal welfare, environmental protection and the mitigation of climate change. Troubled by the negative externalities of food production, as well as the occurrence of a great number of incidents including food law offences and fraudulent behaviour, consumers and policy makers call for more efforts to identify the failures in food markets and mitigate the corresponding credence quality problems and food risks. Hazards and food quality threats may arise at all levels of the food supply system, and safety precautions and controls may fail due to technological flaws and human errors or misbehaviours on any of these levels.Since food quality and safety depend on all members of the food supply chain, improving the chain's quality and safety performance requires collective action and the design of governance structures which facilitate organizational choices that overcome the information and coordination problems within the supply chain. In relation to the self-organization of food businesses, the general governance perspective can be related to private contracts and supply chain management. Supply chain management is about providing/sharing resources and aligning the activities of different supply chain members in order to reduce chain costs and increase chain benefits that can be distributed among the chain members (cf., Arshinder and Deshmukh 2008). In other words: technological and behavioural uncertainties may induce food businesses to make voluntary multi-lateral agreements and allocate