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Contaminated food is a major source of illnesses around the world. This research seeks to learn how people assign responsibility for two food contamination risks and how they allocate costs to reduce these risks to four members of the food supply chain. The aims are to identify differences between countries and test options to control for cultural differences.

A random sample of online panellists from six countries (N = 6,090) was surveyed on how they assigned responsibility for controlling natural and accidental food contamination (traditional food safety) and for controlling intentional contamination (food defense) to farmers, transporters/distributors, retailer grocery stores/restaurants and consumers. They were also asked how they would allocate food safety and defense costs to the four groups. Differences between countries were tested with dummy variables and cultural measures.

In nearly every country, respondents assigned the least responsibility and allocated the smallest cost shares to consumers. In multivariate models, responsibility and cost-share results differed, suggesting that preferences varied by country and that respondents did not allocate costs the same way they assessed responsibility. The food safety and defense models also differed, implying that the respondents believed the two sources of contamination represented different risks.

This is the first study to examine how adults allocate the responsibility and costs for food safety and defense to farmers, transporters/distributors, retailer grocery stores/restaurants and consumers. Other research did not differentiate between these two food risks. This study also compared Hofstede's cultural measures with the recently developed Minkov's cultural measures.

This chapter considers the place of responsibility in confronting ecological sustainability and social equity problems in the food system. We present two illustrations addressing the following question: In what ways does responsibility present a way to close the metabolic rift in line with the vision of the global food sovereignty movement? First, using the example of Metro-Vancouver in Canada, we consider the ways in which urban people claim responsibility for land protection through the concept of urban agrarianism, defined as an urban ethic of care for foodlands, with an associated responsibility to exercise solidarity with those who cultivate and harvest food. Second, we discuss how deepening relational responsibility in legal and regulatory frameworks might hold the corporate food regime accountable in the Canadian context to address their role in and responsibility for mitigating an increasingly risky world, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that the responsibility of urban people to mobilise in solidarity with food movements, and against the corporate food regime in particular, will play a critical role in supporting the transition to sustainable and just food systems. This applies both to finding new ways to claim responsibility for this transition and to hold those actors that have disproportionately benefitted from the corporate food regime responsible. Such a reworking of responsibility is especially necessary as the context for food systems change becomes increasingly urbanised and risky.

This paper aims to identify and define the content of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the food chain.

A qualitative research approach was applied in the study, based on participatory and case study research methodologies. The study drew on three different case food products and their supply chains: rye bread, broiler chicken products and margarine. The content of CSR was built through participatory workshops, the aim of which was to elicit the ideas of different stakeholder groups.

The study identified seven key dimensions of food chain CSR: environment, product safety, corporate nutritional responsibility, occupational welfare, animal health and welfare, local market presence and economic responsibility.

The results provide food and agribusiness companies with a better understanding of core CSR issues and their relevance in complex chains and networks. This may encourage the companies to promote their activities in a more responsible and sustainable direction and offer elements to build sustainable business cases. In addition, the results may indicate a change towards broader understanding of what is meant by corporate social responsibility.

A comprehensive description of food law enforcement in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is presented. The history of food law is described together with the probable consequences of future EEC legislation on the UK situation.

The study seeks to assess the impact of two different corporate social responsibility (CSR) claims, relating to social and environmental dimensions, on consumers' wine choice across international markets. It analyses how point of purchase CSR claims compete with other food claims and their awareness, penetration and consumers' trust are examined.

A discrete choice experiment with a visual shelf simulation was used to elicit consumer preferences and to estimate marginal willingness to pay for CSR and other food claims across the UK, France, Germany, the US East Coast, the US Midwest, and Anglophone and Francophone Canada.

CSR claims relating to social and environmental responsibility have a similar awareness, penetration and consumer trust, but differ in their impact on consumer choice, where environmental corporate responsibility claims benefit from a higher marginal willingness to pay. Consumer valuation of CSR claims significantly differs across international markets, but is consistently lower than for organic claims.

This is the first cross‐national study that analyses the impact of CSR claims on consumer food choice relative to other food claims using large representative consumer samples. The strength of the paper also pertains to the utilisation of innovative choice experiments covering a large range of choice relevant product attributes.

Over the last few decades, consumers’ concerns for healthier lifestyles and the environment have become the driving forces for forming food-buying intentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of product attributes regarding nutrition and health benefits of products, the environmental impact of production and social responsibility of producers on consumers’ food and wine choices.

The empirical analysis is based on an online survey conducted in the USA, the UK and Germany, and incorporates a discrete choice experiment with visual shelf simulations.

Price and nutrition information are much more influential on consumers’ food choices than information about social responsibility of producers or the ecological impact of production. Product attributes emphasizing the ecological impact of production and social responsibility of food producers are specifically valued by consumers with high levels of environmental consciousness and by those concerned about goods production. Consumers who are health conscious regarding their lifestyle and diets derive high utility values from the nutritional information of the product.

The study contributes to an understanding of how to promote healthier food and wine choices and social and environmental responsibility of food and wine producers in various markets.

The study offers a comparison of product attributes concerning ecological, social, nutrition and health benefits of the product; as well the investigation of congruent interrelationships between the consumers’ values and related product attributes in three culturally distinct consumer groups.

The paper aims to explore the food shopping and preparation responsibility in a sample of adults, average age 32.5 years.

A sample of 198 adults (81 men and 117 women) who were involved in a longitudinal dietary study self‐completed a questionnaire about their food habits. Chi‐squared analysis explored relationships between variables using SPSS (version 10). Open‐ended responses were analysed in QSR NUD*IST using a content analysis framework.

The majority of respondents were married or co‐habiting (79 per cent), 6 per cent were lone parents, 9 per cent lived alone and the remainder lived with parents and others. Significantly more women than men were responsible for food shopping and preparation (both p<0.001). Within shared households food responsibility was predominately a female dominated area, with a considerably higher proportion of women responsible for food shopping and preparation compared with men. Reasons given for this included aspects of time and work as well as women being more skilled in this task.

The study was a relatively small and homogenous sample, not necessarily representative of the wider UK population.

Identifies the enduring gender divide in food responsibility. Findings will be useful to health educators, policy planners and researchers.

In light of the recent focus on diet and health, this paper describes the reported shopping and food preparation behaviours in a sample of adults in their 30s at the beginning of a new century.

Corporate social responsibility is a strategic decision whereby an organization undertakes an obligation to society, for example in the form of sponsorship, commitment to local communities, attention to environmental issues and responsible advertising. The impact of organizational decisions on society in the wider sense has been in evidence in the agricultural and food industries in association with merger and takeover activity, environmental pollution, intensive livestock production, hygiene, health and international marketing practices. Social responsibility has been given credibility through the attention given to social issues by the Confederation of British Industry, the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management and is of immediate relevance to the UK food sector because of the recent initiative of the Institute of Grocery Distribution. First considers social responsibility within a corporate strategy framework and subsequently deals with some theoretical and practical issues in the context of the UK food and agricultural sector.

In search of new perspectives on sustainable food production, this paper focuses on three fields of literature, namely corporate responsibility (CR), supply chain management (SCM) and strategy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the recent theoretical developments and then integrate them in a framework for studying and managing corporations.

Conceiving socio‐cultural and economic systems within the ecosystem, this paper call for research in the food sector that takes the planetary boundaries into consideration and places the essential needs of the world's poor onto the research agenda of CR, SCM and strategy.

First, a new perspective on CR could be “holistic and beyond responsive”, as it emphasizes the focal actor's role. Second, SCM could be strengthened at its interface with sustainability by the “bottom of the pyramid” view, as it looks for new ways to make business models and operations beneficial for poor communities. And third, in examining the strategies for these two, the strategy‐as‐practice perspective might prove useful, as it is not only limited to organizational practice but also includes the concepts of organizational praxis and practitioners.

This paper argues that these new perspectives are promising avenues for managing and studying business in the food sector, and thus have implications for both academia and industry.

The framework provided in the paper combines three important areas of business research for sustainable development, namely CR, SCM and strategy.