Food safety governance in China: From supervision to coregulation

Abstract

The food control and regulatory system in China is beset by several challenges. While firms have to reduce their costs in pursuit of benefits, customers are increasingly focusing on safety and quality of food products. Although the Chinese government has developed more stringent regulatory measures, food safety incidents still occur, including abuse of food additives, adulterated products as well as contamination by pathogenic microorganisms, pesticides, veterinary drug residues, and heavy metals, and use of substandard materials. A national food safety strategy has been proposed to assure food safety from “farm to table.” This paper begins with the analysis of current food regulatory systems and then discusses cogovernance of food safety management in China. We explore the practice in the city of Shenzhen where government intervention has strengthened food control, thereby creating an opportunity to form a coregulatory system. The review highlights that the current food safety regulatory system of multi‐agency structure can inevitably lead to insufficient incentives for business entities. Due to asymmetric information, lack of regulatory resources, and consumer advocacy, coregulation has been developed and is increasingly being promoted as an important instrument of food regulation.

A bibliometric analysis of food safety governance research from 1999 to 2019

“…Despite the continuous optimization and improvement of the detection technology, legal system, governance institutions, and other aspects in recent years, global food safety incidents still occur (Downing et al., 2017). Taking China as an example, although the central government took a series of measures against the melamine substandard milk powder incident in 2008, such as the urgent promulgation and implementation of the PRC Food Safety Law , actively restructuring and reforming food safety governance institutions, and the introduction of advanced testing technology and equipment, it still failed to curb the long‐term grim situation in the food industry (Kang, 2019; Liu et al., 2019). After that incident, food safety incidents such as waste oil, clenbuterol hydrochloride, poisoned rice, zombie meat, and African swine fever still occurred frequently.…”

Determining How Chinese Consumers that Purchase Western Food Products Prioritize Food Safety Cues: A Conjoint Study on Adult Milk Powder

“…To strengthen their risk communications with the public, the Chinese government provides regular reports on the results of food quality inspections through mass central and local media. In addition, the China Food and Drug Administration established the national food safety traceability platform (http://www.chinatrace.org) which is available for producers, governmental officials, and consumers and is updated in real time based on sampling inspections (Liu, Mutukumira, & Chen, 2019). The recommendation here is that food safety inspection and quarantine documentations increase consumer confidence and therefore providing this information on a product's Website is highly advisable.…”

Development and Validation of a Questionnaire on Consumer Psychological Capital in Food Safety Social Co-governance

“…China has long implemented a single governance structure of food safety supervision, which is mainly supervised by government departments and supplemented by the supervision of food categories ( Liu et al, 2019 ). With the transformation of economic and social structures and the development of market economy, the diversity of food types and food supply abundance make food quality and safety a common societal concern and bring great challenges to food safety supervision.…”

“…Food safety is a topic of central interest to almost all members of society as it is particularly pertinent to health. In China, the government previously played a dominant role in regulating and monitoring food safety ( Liu et al, 2019 ). Excessive government intervention suppressed the market’s regulatory role, and safety incidents still occur frequently ( Wang et al, 2018 ; Yi et al, 2019 ).…”