Abstract:
Food chain integrity demands strengthening the position of end consumers in the food system. Shaping this consumer-centric agenda leads to a multi-dimensional quest where actors in the food chain need to remodel their production, processing and disclosure norms by focusing on end consumers’ expectations. Food chain integrity so far has largely been explained using the angles of fraud and criminality to mainstream the criticality of curbing intentional contamination in food chain operations. However, the view which accounts for how food safety and food quality expand the understanding of food chain integrity remains underdeveloped. Addressing this concern, we conceptualize the interaction space between the notions of food chain integrity, food safety and food quality using a unifying lens of supply chain governance in the food chain. In doing so, we outline the safety and quality-oriented arcs of food chain governance that are instrumental in creating consumer-centric processes. Drawing from systematic reviews, a multi-disciplinary article set is constructed involving the scholarships of food sector management, logistics and supply chain management, marketing and general management. The key findings outline five principal themes to notionally characterize the targeted interaction space and set the foundation of consumer-centric supply chain governance for food chain integrity. Besides discussing diverse governance areas such as industrial co-regulation, newer emphasis areas for internal/external chain integration and the need for consumer integration in food chain processes, the thematic leads are distilled further to outline macro and micro-level arcs of consumer-centric food chain governance along with strategic pathways for future research.