Elsevier

Trends in Food Science & Technology

Volume 91, September 2019, Pages 409-425
Trends in Food Science & Technology

Review
Global food safety as a complex adaptive system: Key concepts and future prospects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2019.07.040Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The global food system has the characteristics of a complex system.

  • It is important to adopt a proactive approach to understand the global food system.

  • The use of a systems-of-systems approach to understand the global food system is proposed.

  • The approach suggests the use of Human Factors models to understand the working of food systems and the controls therein.

Abstract

Background

Over the last few decades the food production, distribution and consumption chains have become complex as a result of globalisation and food travelling over large distances. The food supply chain is a multi-layered structure with multiple interactions across and within the hierarchical levels across the entire food system. As unwanted factors and food safety behaviours could lead to global food poisoning catastrophes, it is important to adopt a systems approach to gain a whole-system perspective of the global food system.

Scope and approach

In this review the importance of adopting a complex systems approach towards the global food system and a possible systems analysis method that would help capture this perspective are described. This study emphasizes the importance of adopting a proactive approach, starting with identifying the similarities between the characteristics of complex systems and the food system and the importance and benefits of adopting a whole system approach in the global food system.

Key findings and conclusions

Adopting a complex systems approach to the global food system is of paramount relevance as this would help further understand the interconnectivity of food systems and how multifaceted factors across systemic levels play a major role in achieving food safety. Using a systems analysis model such as the Systems-Theoretic Accident Models and Processes (STAMP) model provides the ability to tackle the limitations of event chain models and analyse the complex interactions among various components in the complex food system. It is the need of the hour to study food systems at micro and macro-levels and develop a model that would have the ability to identify food safety related issues across the global food system.

Introduction

Globalisation has led to a world-wide demand for a variety of food products and as a direct consequence, food production, distribution and consumption chains have become distributed, intricate and complex. A combination of population explosion and food scarcity where more than 800 million people remain food insecure (FAO, WFP, & IFAD, 2012), is another reason for the widespread export and import of food across the world. By 2050–2052, it is projected that the global population will reach 8–9 billion people, and at such a point, the dynamics between population, climate and diet would have a more direct effect on the global food systems than what it is today (Lee, 2014; Randers, 2012). A population's diet is determined by a complex interplay of social, economic and technological forces (Schlosser, 2001; Johnston et al., 2014). The food supply chain, from subsistence farmers to multinational food companies, can be viewed as a multifaceted structure with multiple interactions across and within factors distributed across hierarchical levels in the entire system. These intricate levels of interactions are a result of globalization of the agri-food system (Busch, 2004; Inglis, 2016).

Products that were once only locally available are now easily available all over the world (Busch, 2004). This has brought together large populations who lived within defined boundaries by introducing complex governance to deliver sufficient quantities and quality of food (Hueston & McLeod, 2012). Food safety policies help to orient local, regional, national and global food systems. These policies are formed as a result of interactions between a set of stakeholders, some, if not all of who might seek to defend either theirs or their allies’ interests (Maetz, 2013a). The degree of influence of each stakeholder depends on their capacity to have an impact on the institutional framework at the regional, national and global levels within which the policies are being formulated. Governments at various levels often tend to make policies in favour of the vast majority of the population that elected them and the private companies that invest in their party (Maetz, 2013b; Pennington, 2003). The other relevant stakeholders are multinational firms whose main objective is to maximise profit. These firms often have a global impact as they operate in several countries at a time. Therefore, they provide fiscal and social benefits to multiple governments and countries (Maetz, 2013b).

Food regulations such as Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 in the UK (Food Standards Agency, 2005) and the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) in the US (Food and Drug Administration, 2015) make it mandatory for all food businesses to complete microbial testing of their premises as well as of high-risk food products. As a result, there is a tendency to rely solely on microbial analyses (Griffith, Jackson, & Lues, 2017). Although such reactive preventative methods produce a safe food supply system in the short-run, it is limited in its scope over the medium to long-term. Food poisoning outbreaks are still a global issue; every year, millions of people get ill, thousands require hospitalization and hundreds die from food-related illnesses (Walczak & Reuter, 2002). It was estimated by the World Health Organisation's Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group that in 2010, there were 582 million reported cases and 251,000 reported deaths associated with 22 different foodborne enteric diseases (WHO FERG group, 2015). The reason for this is the narrow microbiological base on which preventative efforts are based. Processes such as time and temperature control, safe food handling procedures, employee hygiene, cleaning and sanitizing techniques and a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan or a HACCP-based plan are proven to be effective (Walczak & Reuter, 2002). Despite the existence of reactive approaches, the issue still remains – how to minimise population exposure to foodborne pathogens? Concepts relevant to adopting proactive techniques such as understanding the food system and stakeholders' behaviours and interactions can be helpful in understanding how and why food safety violations occur.

Food systems are quite fragile. Events such as the 1996 E. coli O157 outbreak in Scotland (Pennington, 1997), 2009 Godstone Farm E. coli O157 outbreak in England (Griffin, 2010), 2011 sprouted foods E. coli outbreak in Germany (World Health Organization, 2011) and the 2018 E. coli outbreak in the United States of America (Adam Bros. Farming, 2018; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019) highlight the consequences of such fragility. With food travelling over larger distances in the modern world, food safety related concerns are often raised. This has also led to an increase in the number of factors in the food system that have responsibilities and accountabilities. Due to globalisation of the food industry, it is essential to look at the food system from a global perspective and to identify and address all the flawed factors associated with the food system. Although stricter and more detailed regulations have been established since the above mentioned food poisoning incidents under the assumption that there will be strict compliance, there is a general lack of understanding of compliance and performance variability (Hollnagel, 2009) within the food system.

The overall aim of this paper is to outline the complex systemic properties of the global food system. The specific objectives of the paper are threefold:

  • 1.

    To outline the properties of a complex system and demonstrate its relevance to the global food system and food safety.

  • 2.

    To outline the possible effects of globalisation of the food system on food safety behaviours.

  • 3.

    To illustrate the value of using systems analysis methods to understand interactions between and the functioning of the components of the food system.

In what follows, we first detail the history of globalisation of the food industry followed by a timeline indicating the development of food safety. The primary intention of the timeline is to indicate major developments related to food safety. The timeline also indicates a shift in consumption pattern from immediate consumption to storage and preservation for extending the shelf-life in order to help prevent food poisoning related illnesses and to carry out trade, i.e., export food locally, regionally, nationally and globally. In the later sections of the paper, the properties of a complex system and the relevance of these properties in the current global food system are discussed in great detail. Finally, we discuss a systems and control theory based model, STAMP (System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes), its properties, general application and its possible applicability to understand the interactions between stakeholders within the food system.

Section snippets

Globalisation and the food industry

There have been cascades of changes on a global scale since the latter decades of the twentieth century (Gunderson & Holling, 2002). The factors that played a role in the globalisation of the food industry such as transition from local to global markets and shipping of food products over long distances also played a major role in the development of the concept of food safety by reasons mentioned below (Busch, 2004; Hueston & McLeod, 2012). Globalisation can also have a negative impact on the

Impact of globalization on food safety

As mentioned in Section 2, factors that played a role in globalization also helped in strengthening the conceptual framework required for food safety. Since food could not be shipped over long distances or stored for large periods of time, investment was made in the food preservation sector. The initial methods of food preservation involved drying. This was a method known even in the ancient times. Fermentation and pasteurization were the next developments in food preservation. The latter was

Complex systems: key concepts

One of the most apt definitions for complex systems with regards to the food system is “A system comprised of a (usually large) number of (usually strongly) interacting entities, processes, or agents, the understanding of which requires the development, or the use of, new scientific tools, nonlinear models, out of equilibrium descriptions and computer simulations” (Rocha, 1999). A complex system contains large number of elements (Cilliers, 1998) and is one in which there are more possibilities

Applying a complex systems perspective to food safety

In order to understand food systems and their food safety cultures better, they need to be analysed from two perspectives: (1) ‘micro-perspective’ and (2) ‘macro-perspective’. Factors within the micro-perspective influence the functioning and behaviours of national level food systems. Whereas, factors within the macro-perspective influence the functioning and behaviours of the global food system. The food system is a complex sociotechnical system from both the perspectives (macro and micro) –

Systems analysis of the global food systems using the STAMP methodology

The STAMP (System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes) accident analysis methodology is underpinned by systems and control theory (Salmon et al., 2016) rather than the traditional reliability theory (Leveson, 2015). Systems theory is an effective method to analyse accidents, particularly system accidents (Leveson, 2004; Rasmussen, 1997). According to Leveson (2004), accidents are either a result of inadequate control or inadequate enforcement of safety-related constraints on the development,

Conclusions, limitations and future work

Global interconnected food systems play a major role in the modern society to harness a multiplicity of complex supply chains. Globalisation of food networks has introduced an unprecedented level of complexity to the global food system; this has not only brought significant benefits, but also systemic risks. Due to the interconnectivity across systemic levels, disruptions at one point in the system would lead to reverberations in the form of economic, social and political impacts throughout the

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