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The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting the adoption of food‐safety management systems by Thai food‐manufacturing firms.

The study employs a survey questionnaire using a sample of Thai food‐manufacturing firms. The three‐part questionnaire was mailed to managers performing food‐safety management activities in 480 firms. A total of 217 questionnaires were returned, with a response rate of 45.2 percent.

The results of hypothesis testing indicated that the adoption of a food safety management system can be significantly predicted by: expected gain of social legitimacy; expected gain of economic competitiveness; perceived importance of external stakeholders (government, community, food safety organizations, and media); top management commitment to food safety; firm size and amount of export sales. It can also be predicted by the extent to which firms exchange food safety knowledge with other stakeholders.

The results of the study suggest that the Government should formulate food safety policies in favour of educating senior managers in the potential benefits of food safety management systems for their firms. In addition it confirms the importance of Government information dissemination on the successful adoption of such systems and the need to focus Government resources on assisting smaller firms. The findings present evidence of the commercial benefits of system adoption.

The paper identifies statistically significant factors that can “predict” the uptake of food safety management systems within the Thai food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to determine patients' satisfaction with the bulk trolley food service system and the effect of the system on energy and protein intakes.

An interview‐based questionnaire was used to measure patients' satisfaction (n=70) with the hospital food services. Dietary intake of hospital food was determined through one‐day weighed food intake survey and a food record for non‐hospital food.

The majority of the patients (98.6 per cent) were satisfied and 1.4 per cent was very satisfied with the food service. Energy (kcal) and protein (g) intakes from hospital food were higher than that of outside food (p<0.05). However, most patients did not obtain their full energy and protein requirements from the hospital food provided. Four food service dimensions were found to be significantly correlated with patients' overall satisfaction (p<0.05).

The questionnaire was adapted from the study by Capra et al. and modified to suit the local food service system, thus the application may be context‐specific. The instrument did not measure factors that influence hospital food consumption, nor did it differentiate between the acceptability of different kinds of food. Also a comparison of patients' acceptance between the plated and bulk trolley system was not conducted in this study.

The results of the study can be used as a basis for decision making and for future planning of the food service system. The findings prompt analytical comparison, between the bulk trolley, and plated systems, in determining patients' preference, and to increase food intake.

Patient satisfaction surveys are regularly conducted in the country but none had ever studied the effectiveness of the bulk trolley system in relation to patients' satisfaction. The findings are noteworthy and, compared with the past literature review, the difference in the way the system is carried out in the country may be the contributing factor regarding patients' satisfaction system.

The purpose of this paper is to review the food supply chain management (FSCM) in terms of systems and implementations so that observations and lessons from this research could be useful for academia and industrial practitioners in the future.

A systematical and hierarchical framework is proposed in this paper to review the literature. Categorizations and classifications are identified to organize this paper.

This paper reviews total 192 articles related to the data-driven systems for FSCM. Currently, there is a dramatic increase of research papers related to this topic. Looking at the general interests on FSCM, research on this topic can be expected to increase in the future.

This paper only selected limited number of papers which are published in leading journals or with high citations. For simplicity without generality, key findings and observations are significant from this research.

Some ideas from this paper could be expanded into other possible domains so that involved parties are able to be inspired for enriching the FSCM. Future implementations are useful for practitioners to conduct IT-based solutions for FSCM.

As the increasing of digital devices in FSCM, large number of data will be used for decision-makings. Data-driven systems for FSCM will be the future for a more sustainable food supply chain.

This is the first attempt to provide a comprehensive review on FSCM from the view of data-driven IT systems.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the concepts of exposure, coping capacity and adaptive capacity as a multiple structure of vulnerability in order to distinguish and interpret short-term coping responses and long-term strategic responses to food system vulnerability.

This paper applies an abductive approach for qualitative analysis of data, which were collected through 18 semi-structured interviews among Finnish food system actors.

The findings suggest that coping capacity and adaptive capacity are indeed two different concepts, which both need to be addressed in the examination of food system vulnerability. Public and private food system governance and related decision-making processes seem to focus on building short-term coping capacity rather than strategic adaptive capacity. In fact, conservative and protective policies can be counterproductive in terms of building genuine adaptive capacity in the food system, highlighting institutional and policy failures as limiting adaptive capacity and affecting future vulnerability.

This paper is the first to provide evidence on the multiple structure of food system vulnerability. It simultaneously considers the external aspect (vulnerability drivers) and internal factors, including short term coping capacity and more strategic adaptive capacity, as key determinants of vulnerability.

Agricultural and food systems in the Mekong Region are undergoing transformations because of increasing engagement in international trade, alongside economic growth, dietary change and urbanisation. Food systems approaches are often used to understand these kinds of transformation processes, with particular strengths in linking social, economic and environmental dimensions of food at multiple scales. We argue that while the food systems approach strives to provide a comprehensive understanding of food production, consumption and environmental drivers, it is less well equipped to shed light on the role of actors, knowledge and power in transformation processes and on the divergent impacts and outcomes of these processes for different actors. We suggest that an approach that uses food systems as heuristics but complements it with attention to actors, knowledge and power improves our understanding of transformations such as those underway in the Mekong Region. The key transformations in the region include the emergence of regional food markets and vertically integrated supply chains that control increasing share of the market, increase in contract farming particularly in the peripheries of the region, replacement of crops cultivated for human consumption with corn grown for animal feed. These transformations are increasingly marginalising small-scale farmers, while at the same time, many other farmers increasingly pursue non-agricultural livelihoods. Food consumption is also changing, with integrated supply chains controlling substantial part of the mass market. Our analysis highlights that theoretical innovations grounded in political economy, agrarian change, development studies and rural livelihoods can help to increase theoretical depth of inquiries to accommodate the increasingly global dimensions of food. As a result, we map out a future research agenda to unpack the dynamic food system interactions and to unveil the social, economic and environmental impacts of these rapid transformations. We identify policy and managerial implications coupled with sustainable pathways for change.

This article presents a conceptual framework for the analysis of vegetable supply chains in a South East Asian context and the role wholesale markets play in these chains. Following a review of the literature on food marketing systems in developing countries and preliminary fieldwork in South East Asia, a holistic framework is proposed, including what are perceived to be the critical factors in the development of improved fresh food marketing systems: domestic legal and policy factors, international trade policies and food markets, history, geography, and cultural and social norms. The particular role of trust and collaboration among stakeholders in the Ho Chi Minh City vegetable marketing system is highlighted.

Consumers’ trust in food systems is essential to their functioning and to consumers’ well-being. However, the literature exploring how food safety incidents impact consumer trust is theoretically underdeveloped. This study explores the relationship between consumers’ expectations of the food system and its actors (regulators, food industry and the media) and how these influence trust-related judgements that consumers make during a food safety incident.

In this study, two groups of purposefully sampled Australian participants (n = 15) spent one day engaged in qualitative public deliberation to discuss unfolding food incident scenarios. Group discussion was audio recorded and transcribed for the analysis. Facilitated group discussion included participants' expected behaviour in response to the scenario and their perceptions of actors' actions described within the scenario, particularly their trust responses (an increase, decrease or no change in their trust in the food system) and justification for these.

The findings of the study indicated that food incident features and unique consumer characteristics, particularly their expectations of the food system, interacted to form each participant's individual trust response to the scenario. Consumer expectations were delineated into “fundamental” and “anticipatory” expectations. Whether fundamental and anticipatory expectations were in alignment was central to the trust response. Experiences with the food system and its actors during business as usual contributed to forming anticipatory expectations.

To ensure that food incidents do not undermine consumer trust in food systems, food system actors must not only demonstrate competent management of the incident but also prioritise trustworthiness during business as usual to ensure that anticipatory expectations held by consumers are positive.

The sustainability of the global food system hinges on its environmental resiliency and safety, including the health and well-being of its labor force. Single disciplinary courses in liberal arts or science often fail to highlight the overlap between environmental and social vulnerabilities that lead to food insecurity and diminish the sustainability of food systems. This paper aims to present the design and delivery of a successfully co-taught, interdisciplinary module on agricultural labor and sustainable food systems as a case study.

The authors designed a co-taught module in which they joined each other’s respective history and science class sessions at the undergraduate business college where they teach. Innovating the cross-disciplinary content of food security, immigration status, labor exploitation and pesticide exposure, they approached sustainability from the disciplinary perspectives of labor history and environmental science to show how these elements had both unique and overlapping impacts across food systems levels. Comparisons between pre- and post-module survey responses, alongside assessments of a co-authored exam question, measured the effectiveness of this module is changing students’ perspectives as food consumers and as citizens.

This module altered students’ understanding and perspectives around issues of food systems sustainability. Assessments indicated that students increased their awareness of agricultural workers at the front end of the food system, during production; students also gained awareness beyond consumption as they came to see the connections between workforce invisibility and ecosystem degradation.

These insights are valuable to educators at all institutional levels who seek to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and teaching, both in the singular, robust modules and in building modules that will lead to the development of entire courses focused on sustainability. The module described here builds on previous demonstrations of the value, significance and effectiveness of cross-disciplinary collaborations; it pioneers the use of the food system as the link between social and environmental sustainability education.

The objective of this study is to improve the food supply chain performance taking into consideration the fundamental concepts of traceability by combining the current frameworks, its principles, its implications and the emerging technologies.

A narrative literature review of already existing empirical research on traceability systems was conducted resulting in 862 relevant papers. Following a step-by-step sampling process, the authors ended up with 46 final samples for the literature review.

The main findings of this study include the various descriptions of the architecture of traceability systems, the different sources enabling this practice, the common desirable attributes, and the enabling technologies for the deployment and implementation of traceability systems. Moreover, several technological solutions are presented, which are currently available for traceability systems, and finally, opportunities for future research are provided.

It provides an insight, which could affect the implementation process of traceability in the food supply chain and consequently the effective management of a food traceability system (FTS). Managers will be able to create a traceability system, which meets users' requirements, thus enhancing the value of products and food companies.

This study contributes to the food supply chain and the traceability systems literature by creating a holistic picture of where something has been and where it should go. It is a starting point for each food company to design and manage its traceability system more effectively.

Food insecurity is a major concern for developing economies. Operational inadequacies get introduced with unorganized interactions among stakeholders in the food supply chain, affecting social, economic, environmental and operational (SEEO) aspects of a nation. This study analyzes India's largest food safety net program, Public Distribution System (PDS) and develops a perception-based model, mapping the root causes (of food insecurity) with possible solutions. The novelty lies in leveraging blockchain in the implementation of food traceability system.

Soft system methodology (SSM) is used to identify and analyze problems in PDS, leveraging the learning and inquiry process. It relies on system thinking and action research to create a defendable and rational model, which helps in proposing recommendations for addressing the problem.

Blockchain-enabled food traceability system increases transparency, thus enabling the fulfillment of basic food necessities for beneficiaries.

The proposed model enables policymakers to build a profound understanding of existing operational issues and provides insightful recommendations for making informed decisions to deal with the grave issue of food insecurity.

Unlike previous studies, this research attempts to understand operational inefficiencies during interactions among stakeholders. It proposes a perception-based conceptual model for the final implementation at the ground level. It also reveals significance of three systems: a delivery system, an enabling system empowering delivery system and a criteria system to control and monitor processes. This study thus bridges an important gap in the literature by proposing a blockchain-driven traceability system, under the control of criteria system, through the integration of system-thinking and action-research approach.