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This paper aims to explore the interdisciplinary nature of coordination challenges in the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the food supply chain positions involved.

This adopts an exploratory qualitative research approach over a period of 11 years. Multiple research periods generated 38 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus groups. All data is analysed by a thematic analysis.

The authors identified four key coordination challenges in the logistics response to food safety incidents: first, information quality (sharing information and the applied technology) appears to be seen as the biggest challenge for the response; second, more emphasis on external coordination focus is required; third, more extensive emphasis is needed on the proactive phase in the logistic response; fourth, a distinct difference exists in the position’s views on coordination in the food supply chain. Furthermore, the data supports the interdisciplinary nature as disciplines such as operations management, strategy and organisation but also food safety and risk management, have to work together to align a rapid response, depending on the incident’s specifics.

The paper shows the need for comprehensively reviewing and elaborating on the research gap in coordination decisions for the logistic response to food safety incidents while using the views of the different supply chain positions. The empirical data indicates the interdisciplinary nature of these coordination decisions, supporting the need for more attention to the interdisciplinary food research agenda. The findings also indicate the need for more attention to organisational learning, and an open and active debate on exploratory qualitative research approaches over a long period of time, as this is not widely used in supply chain management studies.

The results of this paper do not present a managerial blueprint but can be helpful for practitioners dealing with aspects of decision-making by the food supply chain positions. The findings help practitioners to systematically go through all phases of the decision-making process for designing an effective logistic response to food safety incidents. Furthermore, the results provide insight into the distinct differences in views of the supply chain positions on the coordination decision-making process, which is helpful for managers to better understand in what phase(s) and why other positions might make different decisions.

The findings add value for the general public, as an effective logistic response contributes to consumer’s trust in food safety by creating more transparency in the decisions made during a food safety incident. As food sources are and will remain essential for human existence, the need to contribute to knowledge related to aspects of food safety is evident because it will be impossible to prevent all food safety incidents.

As the main contribution, this study provides a systematic and interdisciplinary understanding of the coordination decision-making process for the logistic response to food safety incidents while distinguishing the views of the supply chain positions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a comprehensive categorisation of food scares.

Following an initial desktop study, the categorisation was developed collaboratively with industry experts through a workshop and series of semi-structured interviews.

The new categorisation developed is in Venn diagram format allowing overlapping categories. It is organised around the two major types of contamination (biological, and chemical/physical contaminants) and the two major causes of contamination (wilful deception, and transparency and awareness issues).

The long and complex supply chains characteristic of current food production systems have resulted in a rising number of food scares. There is thus an increased emphasis on developing strategies to reduce both the number of incidents of food scares, and their associated economic, social and environmental impacts. The new categorisation developed in this study enables experts to address categories of food scares. Inclusion of the cause of contamination is particularly important as the method through which contamination occurs is key in devising food scare prevention strategies.

The new categorisation, unlike previous categorisations, enables food scares to fall into multiple categories, as appropriate. Also, again in contrast to previous categorisations, it takes into account not only the physical problem of a food scare but also the mechanism through which it arises.

This study explains Indonesian consumers' choice of poultry meat attributes and the willingness to pay (WTP) for these attributes using a discrete choice experiment.

The survey was conducted for the traditional and modern channels and involved a sample of 440 respondents in the Greater Jakarta area. A discrete choice experiment was employed as the study framework and in designing the questionnaire. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate consumers' preference for poultry attributes in modern and traditional channels.

Consumers preferred warm poultry meat, government certification and product information labeling on poultry meat. The WTP for warm poultry meat was the highest, which is indicating that freshness is crucial for consumers to ensure quality. Moreover, consumers had more trust in government certification than private certification for food safety and were willing to pay more for product information labeling on poultry meat.

The government can use the model as a decision support to improve poultry meat quality at sales channels in Indonesia including to close sales channels where sick poultry are sold and thus address food safety concerns caused by the avian influenza outbreak.

This study shows that understanding the WTP for poultry meat attributes enables the government to control the poultry sales channels and stimulates producers to supply the market with a safer poultry meat quality using the price mechanism.

The authors aimed to identify the opinions of young adult consumers regarding food processing companies’ (FPCs) credibility in terms of food safety (FS).

The authors surveyed Generation Z (GenZ) consumers. The authors assessed the reliability of the research questionnaire using Cronbach’s alpha statistics. The authors used descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA analysis of variance in the data analysis to determine intergroup variability. The authors performed statistical analyses using IBM SPSS Statistics. 27.

The most valued determinants for consumers were competence and skills, and the most valued family members’ opinions on FS, followed by experts’ opinions. FS concerns are more associated with FPCs than with farmers. The ethics of conduct and moral responsibility play an important role in assessing the FPCs’ credibility.

The questionnaire did not focus on specific food industries, such as fruit and vegetables, fish, meat, dairy, etc. In the future, a similar survey on producers’ credibility should consider the issue of FS risks associated with the specifics of a particular industry.

The authors proposed a set of factors that may determine young adult consumers’ perception of the FPCs’ credibility, which they may use for research within other consumer groups.

In this paper, the authors integrate the psychological ownership theory with the concept of commitment to contribute to the discussion on agricultural supply chain management. The purpose of this study is to examine how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship with the processor and how this is conveyed through the routes of psychological ownership.

The empirical data are based on 14 in-depth face-to-face Finnish farmer interviews. To understand the farmers’ routes to psychological ownership, the critical incidents technique was used.

According to the three routes to psychological ownership – control, profound knowledge and self-investment – the authors argue that farmers mainly consider their routes to be more or less blocked because of the asymmetrical power and information distribution in the business relationship with the processor. Furthermore, based on farmers’ perceptions of psychological ownership, the authors provide a farmer typology that reflects in the farmers’ willingness to commit to the business relationship. The identified types are named as satisfied, captives and leavers.

By integrating the theory of psychological ownership with the concept of commitment, this study provides a more robust understanding of how farmers experience their commitment to the business relationship, thus, contributing to the literature on supply chain management in the agri-food business context. Implementation of these findings can help business partners to proactively improve their business relationships through the perceived level of commitment and to deal with critical incidents influencing the effectiveness of the whole chain.

Dairy products are an essential part of a healthy diet, and dairy is an emerging food industry in China. Meanwhile, the dairy industry is one of the “disaster zones” with quality and safety issues occurring more frequently in its supply chain than in others. Based on qualitative research focused on consumers in the Northwest and South of China, the present study aims to understand and provide information on consumer perception of food safety in dairy products.

Nine focus group interviews were carried out from January to April 2018. Altogether, 61 participants (24 males, 37 females, aged 18–60 years) were recruited in four cities. Qualitative content analysis of the data was conducted using Nvivo version 11.4.0.

A high concern with the safety of dairy products is widespread, particularly among participants with children, who are especially worried about the safety of dairy products. High prevalence of food safety incidents causes consumers to lower their confidence in food safety, and make them pay more attention to the news about food safety incidents. Consumers tend to become less sensitive to price, focusing more on food safety and quality, while purchasing dairy products. Brand and purchase venue are the most important indicators for consumers to determine the quality of dairy products. Safety certification becomes increasingly important.

It has some limitations. The focus group interviews covered different two regions (Northwest and South of China). However, the number of focus groups was limited to nine because of budget constraints. The participants come from Northwest and South of the country, which means that the findings may not apply for another area of the country. A more representative sampling with a larger sample size would be necessary to increase the validity of the study. However, the results can serve as input for further research.

This paper explores the Chinese consumers' perception of food safety and dairy products, consumers' behaviour concerning dairy products based on focus group interviews with consumers. This study offers valuable insights to members of academia, food suppliers and policy-makers.

Food safety is an important characteristic of food, because it influences health. Perception of food hazards is a complex issue. Consumers have different perceptions regarding the probability of a hazard occurring in different food groups. If a hazard appears in the food, it has severe consequences. This is not only because of the negative impact on health and life but also because of the entire economy and image of producers.

A survey using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing method was conducted in January 2020 in Poland with 2,000 respondents to collect information about consumers' perception of food safety and lack of food safety.

It was shown that this perception depends mainly on gender and the decisiveness on food purchase. The similarity of the country from which the hazard comes as well as the scientists' knowledge about the hazard influences hazard perception by consumers. If a hazard appears in food, it has serious consequences for consumers, food chain actors, public finance and so on. The occurrence of food hazards causes consumers to stop buying this food product.

This study provides interesting information about consumers' perception of the lack of food safety. These results can be used by food producers and food safety authorities. The results also provide input information for further research on the perception of food safety in various types of food products.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an effective and economical management platform to realize real-time tracking and tracing for prepackaged food supply chain based on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, and finally ensure a benign and safe food consumption environment.

Following service-oriented architecture, a flexible layered architecture of tracking and tracing platform for prepackaged food is developed. Besides, to reduce the implementation cost while realizing fine-grained tracking and tracing, an integrated solution of using both the QR code and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag is proposed. Furthermore, Extensible Markup Language (XML) is adopted to facilitate the information sharing among applications and stakeholders.

The validity of the platform has been evaluated through a case study. First, the proposed platform is proved highly effective on realizing prepackaged food tracking and tracing throughout its supply chain, and can benefit all the stakeholders involved. Second, the integration of the QR code and RFID technologies is proved to be economical and could well ensure the real-time data collection. Third, the XML-based method is efficient to realize information sharing during the whole process.

The contributions of this paper lie in three aspects. First, the technical architecture of IoT-based tracking and tracing platform is developed. It could realize fine-grained tracking and tracing and could be flexible to adapt in many other areas. Second, the solution of integrating the QR code and RFID technologies is proposed, which could greatly decrease the cost of adopting the platform. Third, this platform enables the information sharing among all the involved stakeholders, which will further facilitate their cooperation on guaranteeing the quality and safety of prepackaged food.