Integrity of food supply chain: going beyond food safety and food quality
Eric Kaiyue Ling, Siti Norida Wahab
Abstract
As consumers' trust and confidence in food have been shaken by food incidents that could be intentional (crime) or unintentional (negligence). This paper examines the issue of food integrity in a holistic approach that goes beyond food safety and food quality. The concept of farm-to-fork from supply chain management being adopted to review the extant literature concerning integrity of food supply chain. From the extensive literature review, food safety system such as HACCP is argued to be insufficient in assuring food integrity because it does not prevent deliberate contamination, while traceability and technology are recognised as important communication linkages that provide transparency and evidence on food integrity across the supply chain. This paper has developed the house of food integrity framework to provide novel insights on the food supply chain by illustrating food integrity as a multi-dimensional concept, which incorporates food defence in addition to food safety and food quality.