Identifying leading indicators for implementation of food safety standards
2011
Berdnik, I.
Attention is being focused on the international aspects of food safety and the impact regulations have on worldwide trade. Until now, there have been numerous conflicting and competing food safety regulations which have unnecessarily driven up the costs of food. Recently, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) has made a concerted effort to benchmark existing international food safety standards against unifying food safety criteria. The GFSI vision is "once certified, accepted everywhere" (GFSI, 2011a), thus requiring only one benchmarked food safety scheme for each company under the GFSI framework. The current study evaluated the impact of a large US retailer requiring their suppliers to proactively go beyond USDA and FDA requirements, then select and become certified under one of the accepted GFSI benchmarks by July 2009. An online survey collected information from a total of 174 retail suppliers. Topics included: a) suppliers' individual food safety culture before and after embracing one of the benchmark GFSI schemes, b) motivating factors for becoming certified for one of the GFSI schemes, and information about their selection of a certain benchmark GFSI provider, and c) leading indicators of the benefits of complying with GFSI benchmark schemes. The purpose of this study was to determine: (1) the leading indicators, mostly qualitative, and (2) the benefits from a majority of suppliers and distributors as they made the transition from their previous food safety system to one of the food safety systems endorsed by a benchmark GFSI recognized scheme.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania