Economic Incentives for Firms to Implement Enhanced Food Safety Controls: Case of the Canadian Red Meat and Poultry Processing Sector

This study assesses quantitatively the economic incentives for firms to adopt food safety controls and the potential impact of a number of firm- and market-specific characteristics on this behavior, focusing on the red meat and poultry processing sector in Canada. The results suggest that market-based (private) incentives have a greater impact on the food safety responsiveness of firms in this sector than government regulatory actions. This creates challenges for regulators in defining policy instruments that promote greater levels of food safety control in food processing sectors rather than constraining firms from taking initiatives that exceed regulatory requirements.     

Traceability, Liability, and Incentives for Food Safety and Quality

Recent food scares such as the discoveries of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and E. coli -contaminated spinach have heightened interest in food traceability. Here, we show how exogenous increases in food traceability create incentives for farms and marketing firms to supply safer food by increasing liability costs. We model a stylized marketing chain composed of farms, marketers, and consumers. Unsafe food for consumers can be caused by either marketers or farms. We show that food safety declines with the number of farms and marketers and imperfect traceability from consumers to marketers dampens liability incentives to supply safer food by farms.     

食品抽样工作中存在问题与解决办法

食品安全抽样作为食品安全管理中的关键一环,是评估食品安全状况的重要依据。通过对食品展开安全抽检,能及时发现其中所存在的问题,就能避免出现食品安全隐患。本文对食品抽样工作中存在的问题进行分析,并提出相应的解决措施,以保障食品抽样工作开展的合法性、科学性和公正性。     

You get what you pay for: the link between price and food safety in Kenya

The lack of a reliably safe food supply in developing countries imposes both health and economic costs. Food safety is one of several dimensions of food quality that are typically unobservable at the time of purchase. Branding can overcome this information problem by allowing firms to build reputations based on the quality of their products. If a reputation for food safety is valued directly by consumers, or if food safety is correlated with other valued attributes, firms producing safer food should be able to use their brand equity to charge higher prices. In addition, firms with stronger brand equity have stronger incentives to meet food safety standards in order to maintain that equity. Using data from more than 900 maize flour samples representing 23 distinct brands in eastern and central Kenya, we explore the relationship between price and contamination with aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a fungal toxin common in maize, groundnuts, and other crops around the world. We find a strong negative correlation between price and contamination at the brand level, consistent with the hypothesized positive relationship between brand equity and food quality.     

食品安全检测技术对食品质量安全的影响

随着目前科学技术的深入发展,很多新型的检测技术被应用到食品安全检测工作中,在对食品开展检测的过程中,不同的食品需要采用不同的检测技术,从而充分检测出食品中的问题和安全隐患,并及时追究相关生产厂家的责任,禁止有问题的食品流入到市场中.基于此,本文对食品安全检测技术对食品质量安全的影响进行了深入的探究和分析,并且提出了一些...     

食品加工中的污染及其安全检验方法初探

近年来,我国食品安全问题时有发生,造成食品安全问题的根本原因不仅是相关法律体系不够完善和对食品安全重视程度较低,还与食品检测技术水平息息相关。本文针对食品加工中的污染源和危害进行了详细介绍,针对食品加工污染类型,提出了一系列的应对策略,并针对食品污染检测方法进行探讨,以为我国食品安全奉献绵薄之力。     

塑化剂与食品安全问题探讨

在阐述了塑化剂和邻苯二甲酸酯类物质（PAEs）的理化性质、危害的基础上,综述了食品中邻苯二甲酸酯类塑化剂的产生原因,提出了应对塑化剂污染的措施,建议食品企业采用5类措施消除塑化剂对食品安全生产的隐患.     

Contractual choice and food safety strategy: Empirical findings in the Italian poultry sector

Analysis of contract choice is related here to the contracting nature of hybrid governance structures. First, recent research results on the organization of food safety supply are summarized and some remarks about contracting are proposed, providing the theoretical premises of the study. The approach of empirical analysis is concerned with transactions between farmers and processors in Italian poultry supply chains. The contract arrangement is classified as a hybrid structure, and growers' preferences regarding contract terms are analysed by a choice experiment. Final remarks take into account the role of contract attributes in ensuring the degree of food safety, and give a tentative organizational explanation of the degree of safety supplied. Potential lines of future research are mentioned.     

影响食品检验准确性的因素及管理策略研究

随着我国社会经济水平的逐渐提高,食品消费量逐渐增加,人们对食品质量也提出更高的要求和标准.但很多食品制造商不重视食品安全,导致市场上存在很多劣质食品,给人们带来了极大的安全隐患,不利于保障食品安全质量.因此社会对食品检验工作提出了更高的要求,相关部门需要做好食品安全监督管理工作,构建完善的食品检验体制,强化食品安全监察...     

Are Food Certification Costs Misestimated? Exporter‐Perspective on the European Standard

Food safety regulations aimed at controlling food contamination have sometimes been criticised as excessive burdens, disadvantaging smaller firms and exports from developing nations. Reported food safety expenditures appear relatively small (from <1 to 7% of the value of production) but can erode profit margins for many firms. This article responds to claims that reported firm‐level expenditures do not reflect true costs of compliance with food safety systems. We estimate incidental cost savings and uncounted costs associated with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification among Philippine seafood producers by modelling the interactions between conventional production and food safety expenditures using translog cost functions. Results indicate a significant underestimation of reported HACCP costs by an average of US$1.10 for a dollar of reported expenditure.     

Exploring Incentives for the Adoption of Food Safety Controls: HACCP Implementation in the U.K. Dairy Sector

This article explores the incentives that motivate the adoption of food safety controls by businesses through a study of HACCP adoption in the U.K. dairy processing sector. The study identifies four key factors that have motivated the adoption of HACCP, namely, internal efficiency, commercial pressure, external requirements, and good practice. Respondents to the survey are clustered according to the relative importance of these factors in their adoption decision. Four clusters are identified and related to the characteristics of firms, including firm size and type of products manufactured. The results indicate that there are systematic differences in the HACCP adoption process between individual firms.     

Short-term impact of food safety standards on agri-product exports: Evidence from Japan's positive list system on Chinese vegetable exports

We examine the short-term impact of the Positive List System (PLS), a strict food safety standard implemented by Japan in 2006, on vegetable exports from China to Japan. By applying a difference-in-difference model to unique monthly export data at the firm-product level, we found that the PLS decreased the probability of Chinese vegetable firms exporting to Japan by 3.4%, and decreased their export quantity and value by 9.7% and 8.6%, respectively. Most of the policy impact is through a decrease in the intensive trade margin (i.e., how much to trade), rather than the extensive trade margin (i.e., whether to trade). We also found that foreign-invested enterprises and smaller enterprises are less affected than non-foreign-invested enterprises and larger enterprises. Our results alleviate the concern that stricter food safety standards may exclude many firms, especially small ones, from the export market.     

Sales Responses to Recalls for Listeria monocytogenes: Evidence from Branded Ready-to-Eat Meats

The extent to which brand names insulate firms from the spillover effects of food safety events is a potentially important difference between branded products and the undifferentiated commodity products examined in earlier studies. This paper uses empirical models to measure sales losses experienced by frankfurter brands following a recall for a foodborne pathogen. Results indicate sales of recalled brands declined roughly 22% after a recall. Brand recovery, on average, began two to three months after a recall and sales approached prerecall levels within four to five months. There is no evidence that nonrecalled brands experienced sales losses.     

Technological Innovation Drivers in Rural Small Food Industries in Iran

The first step in devising the best incentives to support innovation is to investigate factors that affect the development of innovations. This article contributes to exploring such factors in small food industries in the rural areas of Tehran province, Iran. Using a census sampling method, 111 managers of 60 active firms were interviewed. The results showed that in general the level of technological innovation is low in the studied firms. The managers do not find the technological changes successful in bringing benefit to their firms. Even though correlation analysis indicated a complex association matrix between independent variables, only the firm's capacity of production was associated with technological innovation as a dependent variable. Furthermore, the regression analysis revealed that factors which influence technological innovation are the firm's age, formal research and development, fixed capital, and capacity of production. The results of this study were used to derive practical suggestions for managers and policymakers to increase technological innovation in the studied industry.     

Cross-licensing agreements in presence of technological improvements

This study investigates the relationship between technologies that firms expect to achieve after cross-licensing (CL) and their incentives for signing CL agreements in a multiproduct-firm setting. Results indicate that if markets are bounded substantial technological improvements that result in removal of firms’ current products from the market may in fact reduce firms’ incentives to negotiate a CL deal. This may also give firms an incentive to agree upon a tacit collusion by which they limit the utilization of CL technologies. However, when markets are unbounded, the prospect of capturing new markets and charging royalty fees can significantly increase firms’ incentives for CL. The rationale behind our modeling assumptions is discussed using example from agriculture biotechnology industry.     

食源性致病微生物快速检测技术的发展趋势及研究进展

食品卫生安全关乎人们的身体健康和生命安全,而伴随着我国居民生活质量和水平的持续上升,人们对食品卫生也提出了更高的要求。近年来,食源性微生物污染所导致的食品卫生安全事件受到了社会各界人士的广泛关注,相关研究机构和大量工作人员对其检测技术的研究力度也逐年增加,一些针对性较强、检测灵敏度高、检测速度快的检测方法也相继问世,有效提高了检测准确度,缩减了检测耗时。本文阐述了食源性微生物致病菌的危害以及快速检测技术的重要性,对近年来出现的食源性微生物检测技术进行了逐一分析,归纳总结了食源性微生物检测技术的发展趋势与目前研究的进展。     

论食品抽样检测的方法与技巧

食品抽样检测是食品安全方面的重要工作,只有做好了抽样检测方法的选取,掌握相应的检测技巧,才能够提高食品抽样检测结果的准确性,维护和保障食品安全。基于此,本文针对食品抽样检测的基本工作,对抽样检测方法和技巧进行分析,以有效解决食品的各种安全威胁,为人们提供安全、绿色的食品。     

Winners and losers from food industry policy: An application to Danish food industry firms

Policy impacts on food industry firms are investigated. A new approach is presented for the analysis of food industry policies that focuses on food industry firms. Data from a survey of Danish firms in 2003-2004 are used to define and construct tables of winners and losers from 30 regulatory areas. Two forms of statistical test are employed in a grid-search to identify association between regulatory areas, types of firms, and patterns of winning and losing. Results indicate that the type of firm, rather than the policy instrument, determines patterns of winning and losing. Upstream and downstream ownership of assets by food industry firms, and their trade orientation, are shown to be the most important variables. For several policy areas the pattern of winning and losing is found not to be associated with any specific firm types, which indicates that their impact is neutral across all types of firms studied. Firm size was found to be poorly associated with firms' capacity to win and lose from several policies involving high-investment compliance.     

试析食品安全问题与食品检测发展方向

随着人们生活水平的不断提高,食品安全问题越来越受到人们的重视,因此,食品质量监管部门也积极致力于食品安全检查管理系统的优化和革新.从现实角度来看,食品安全问题的出现不仅会给社会带来极其严重的负面影响,也会给公众的身心健康带来极大的伤害.本文从食品安全问题与食品检测技术为出发点进行阐述,以期为食品安全与检测发展提供一定的...     

Food Aid, Food Prices, and Producer Disincentives in Ethiopia

Although the short-term aims of food aid are well conceived, strong concerns have been voiced regarding the long-term impacts of such aid on incentives for agricultural producers in recipient countries. This article examines the statistical link between food aid shipments and food prices in Ethiopia over the period 1996–2006. Monthly data from three markets and three commodities are used to estimate a system of seemingly unrelated regression models for food prices. Results indicate that previous year food aid shipments reduce prices in all producer and consumer markets. These effects, however, appear to be limited to the set of internationally traded commodities that are domestically marketed. A recursive regression procedure is used to identify the food aid threshold at which a negative aid effect emerges. Food aid shipments that constitute less than 10% of domestic production appear to be benign, but shipments above this level show signs of being disruptive to local markets. We use a simple policy simulation to argue that production-sensitive targeting, e.g., conditioning food aid on local food production, would help to circumvent disincentive effects.