Principal Investigator: Professor Sir Mike Gregory

This project explores food safety issues and presents a prototype approach to evaluate and manage food safety, especially in cross border supply chains involving best practices, international regulatory requirements and procurement strategies adopted by the food manufacturing firms.

Food safety concerns are receiving widespread attention due to the recent food recalls such as horse meat in UK (‘13), German Poultry (‘11), Irish pork (’08), etc. Food safety is mainly associated with ‘harm to health;’ however, ‘harm to emotion or beliefs’ has recently emerged as an important food safety issue. Food industry trends suggest that consumers in developed countries not only demand safe food and the place of origin of the food but also an assurance that the food they are consuming is what they think they are consuming. Consequently, ensuring food safety has emerged as one of the important industrial challenges, particularly when products are sourced from abroad. However, the practices adopted by food manufacturers in developing countries in a rather complex global food supply chain are relatively unexplored.

It aims to bring together understanding of safety practices in different stages of the supply chain from three perspectives: regulation and standards, safety systems and supplier selection criteria. The key findings will include a textual analysis of the safety practices followed in the industry and a prototype approach through which these practices can be evaluated in the complex cross boarder food supply chain.