3. Overview of Food Safety Standards

Over the past 20 years globalisation, consumer awareness, and changing patterns of food consumption and distribution have made food safety a key public health issue. Food supply chains are increasingly complex, providing greater opportunities for contamination, pathogen development, and spread. Ensuring safe food has become a major challenge that must be managed at every stage of the supply chain—from production to consumption, from field to fork. Governments and the food industry have been under pressure to develop management, control and enforcement systems at all levels, leading to a dramatic growth and evolution of public regulations and private industry standards. Together these have created a stringent and complex set of demands with which food business operators must now comply. This in turn has created challenges for suppliers which, in some cases, limits the ability of small and medium sized enterprises to access lucrative global and local markets. It has affected developing country players in particular where they lack the necessary capital, infrastructure and technical support. This chapter provides an overview of the development and changes that have taken place over the past two decades in the official (government) regulations and controls. It also describes the dramatic growth in private sector schemes, exploring the relationship between private standards and public regulations, and introduces a discussion on their potential importance and impact on developing country suppliers. This overview is provided primarily in the context of the horticulture sector.