Elsevier

Food Control

Volume 38, April 2014, Pages 109-115
Food Control

Comparison of implementing HACCP systems of exporter Mexican and Chinese meat enterprises

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2013.10.017Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A comparative assessment of the facts associated with the implementation of HACCP between Mexican and Chinese industry enterprises was made.

  • Similarities and differences between these two countries were described.

  • Meat export markets of the two countries have similarities in some respects.

  • It is showed the relevance of HACCP system role into domestic and overseas activities in foreign trade for exporting countries.

Abstract

International trade scrutinises food safety practices and procedures, and food businesses have to review their safety procedures more rigorously. HACCP is increasingly relied on to ensure food safety in both meat-producing and meat-processing enterprises. The objective of this study was to compare incentives, costs, difficulties and benefits of Chinese and Mexican meat-exporting enterprises related to food safety management systems implementation. A questionnaire was applied to identify the main factors involved in HACCP implementation. Data were collected among 32 Chinese and 42 Mexican companies, and analysed using the SAS package. The implementation of the HACCP system was filled out in all exporting meat industries. The results indicated that the major incentives were related to improving product quality for both countries, whilst improving control of the process was the first motivation in the Chinese industry and access to new foreign markets was the first motivation in the Mexican one. In addition, both countries' industries reported that staff training was the most important implementing cost, while product testing was the major operating cost. The difficulties found during HACCP implementation and operation activities were associated with availability of personnel for other tasks for China and costs of certification for Mexico. The reported benefits were relevant for the two countries, due to the ability to reduce microbial counts and increased access to foreign and domestic markets. A better understanding of the costs and benefits associated with HACCP systems could be helpful and is necessary in every segment of the food chain in every sector of domestic and international markets in order to assure food quality and safety.

Introduction

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) is a safety and quality management tool in the food industry that both focuses on prevention of possible hazards and concentrates on improving processes (Swanson & Anderson, 2000). This system intends to address hazards of such a nature that their elimination or reduction to acceptable levels is essential to the production of safe foods (Orriss & Whitehead, 2000); it identifies critical control points (CCPs) which are key factors in monitoring and controlling food safety (ICMSF, 1998), and applies to all risks that may be prejudicial to the health of consumers from production to consumption. HACCP system reports and their use in industry of a large percentage of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been reported for meat and poultry companies, slaughterhouses, seafood companies, the dairy industry and catering facilities (Lee & Hathaway, 1998). In order to assure food quality, ISO 9000 is a world self-regulation standard for the food industry. Furthermore, it is important that those hygiene regulations apply to all sectors of the food chain (Henson & Caswell, 1999) to highlight the effectiveness of the HACCP system, especially in relation to the microbiological quality of food produced in all types of establishments (Gillespie, Little, & Mitchell, 2000). Latin America fish plants experienced a decrease in total quality costs and an increase in quality, after the proper implementation of the HACCP system and compliance with HACCP-based regulations (Lupin, Parin, & Zugarramurdi, 2010). Similar approaches were reported in a small processing unity of mozzarella cheese in Brazil (Dias et al., 2012) and in Japanese milk processing plants (Sampers, Toyofuku, Luning, Uyttendaele, & Jacxsens, 2012). There is little information available regarding benefits, constraints, costs and motivations in the implementation of HACCP programmes. Yapp and Fairman (2006) identified some of the main barriers affecting food safety, particularly those related to time and money, and underlying issues preventing compliance, such as lack of motivation in dealing with food safety legislation and a lack of knowledge and understanding for SMEs. Garayoa, Vitas, Díez-Leturia, and García-Jalón (2011) also confirmed the existence of inherent barriers to effectively implementing the HACCP system, such as knowledge, psychological and operating barriers.

It is relevant to consider the food industry's previous compliance with the prerequisite programmes, because costs for the implementation and maintenance of the HACCP system are considerably lower than HACCP plan without compliance (Domenici, Cardoso, & Barbosa, 2006). Colatore and Caswell (1998) pointed out that truthful estimation of benefits and costs prior to implementation is difficult and should be based on actual experience. Data reported on the cost of the HACCP system for most industries depends not only on the requirements of the system, but also on improvement of the current status of food safety-related practices in the company (Motarjemi & Käferstein, 1999). However, Khatri and Collins (2007) mention that most of the costs involved with HACCP could not be recovered in the short term, and for small companies, the costs are not refurbishment. Reduction in safety/quality costs definitely drove food industry to implement and comply with HACCP regulations. There are two main approaches to measure industry costs, direct measurement of compliance costs applicable ex ante; and indirect econometric approaches that requires actual data on costs incurred in implementing the regulation so is suitable for ex post monitoring (Traill & Koenig 2010). The efficiency and effectiveness of quality control activities increase was reported by Lupin et al. (2010) in the Argentina fishing industry, due to the organizational learning, and conformance costs recorded a decreasing rate, allowing reductions in failure costs over time. It is reported that the status of food safety in China has changed in a positive direction, but the industry still faces challenges in assuring the safety of the food supply, and more attention to food safety should be conferred because of decreasing foodstuff export value and the reduction of consumer trust in the food industry (Bai, Ma, Gong, & Yang, 2007). On the other side, it has been shown that the Mexican meat-processing industry provided internal and external problem indicators associated with the implementation of HACCP and ISO 9000, and the suggestions were to improve them for competing with foreign markets into a globalisation trade, with higher rigorous standards (Maldonado-Siman, Ruíz-Flores, Núñez-Domínguez, González-Alcorta, & Alicia Hernández-Rodríguez, 2009).

Food-exporting countries are intricately bound to comprehensive HACCP-based food control systems because they are obligated to assure food safety in international trade and meet the requirements of an increasing number of importing countries. They are also forced to meet market requirements, operating comprehensive HACCP-based food control systems to effectively assure food safety in international trade. It is critical for food in international trade to increase bilateral and multilateral recognition of the legitimacy of different approaches to the design of HACCP plans in different countries (Lee & Hathaway, 1999).

Since the year of 2000, the meat export of China ranked between 10 and 20 in the world; Japan and Hong Kong are the top two export markets, and other major markets include Macao, USA and Korea (Xiao-ping & Bing-long 2010) According to China Commercial Press (2012), China exported 773 thousand tons of meat in 2011, with an increase of 2.5% over the last year. Among the exported meat products, processed meat products occupied a higher ratio; poultry and pork meat are the main export products. In 2011, the export of Chinese poultry meat reached 488 thousand tons, engaged 63.1% of the total meat export, and Japan, Hong Kong and Malaysia were the top three export markets; pork meat reached 220 thousand tons and occupied 28.5% of the total meat export, and Hong Kong, Japan and Macao were the top three export markets. The exports of beef and mutton products remained at marginal levels. The volume of beef products was 39.4 million tons, and their major export markets were Hong Kong, Japan and Kyrgyzstan; the volume of mutton products was 8.1 million tons, and their major export markets were Hong Kong, Japan and Kyrgyzstan (China Commercial Press, 2012). Mexican beef fresh meat are exported to Asian countries like Japan and Korea; however, primarily as a major client remained USA with more than 50%, and with less amounts are recorded Central America, Puerto Rico and Russia (Génesis Consultoría, 2009). Mexican pork meat exports reported an annual growth rate of 20.8%; the main target markets are Japan, Korea and USA, whilst processed products as cold meat, sausages and skins for direct consumption are exported to Japan and countries in Central America (SAGARPA, 2009a), and the poultry meat exports reported by SAGARPA (2009b) remain at marginal levels and they were initiated to Hong Kong and Vietnam. Thus, the aim of this paper was to compare the process of HACCP implementation in two contrasting meat industries – in China and Mexico – as well as information regarding the characterisation of enterprises, domestic and international markets, motivators, constraints, costs and benefits.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

Field information for this study was based on questionnaires used by Gong et al., 2005, Herath and Henson, 2010 and Maldonado et al. (2005), with adjustments. The survey was sent to 113 Mexican meat-processing enterprises registered in the Official Listing of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food of SAGARPA (SAGARPA, 2013), and to 131 Chinese meat-processing enterprises that have implemented the HACCP system with the help of Jilin Food and Drug

Characterisation of the meat exporter enterprises

The number of enterprises who responded to the questionnaires was 42 and 32 for Mexico and China, corresponding to 37.2% and 24.5% of the total original questionnaires sent to the firms, respectively. Table 1 shows the distribution of the type of participant enterprises in Mexico and China. Mexican enterprises worked with only one product species each, generally pork (48%), beef cattle (33%) or poultry (19%); Chinese enterprises worked mainly with combinations of two (38%) or three (31%)

Conclusions

This study provides a comparative assessment of the facts associated with the implementation of HACCP systems in some meat industry enterprises active in China and Mexico. It provides useful indications of the incentives, costs, difficulties and benefits of HACCP implementation as the participating food processing companies perceived them. Among the similarities between these two countries, it can be pointed out that quality improvement was assumed by both as the major incentive (very important

Acknowledgements

The survey in China was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation (71103074) and Humanities and Social Science Project of Ministry of Education of China (06JC630013). The opinions expressed here do not reflect those of the funding agencies.

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