Standards Promoting Food Safety and Quality

A special issue of Standards (ISSN 2305-6703). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Safety Standards".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 4673

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Soil, Plant and Food Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy
Interests: sustainable development; sustainable entrepreneurship; rural development; ecosystem services; circular economy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Center for Politics and Bioeconomy of Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of the Agrarian Economy (CREA), Via Barberini, 36-00187 Roma, Italy
Interests: public spending and taxation in agriculture; national and regional agricultural policy; funding for agricultural entrepreneurs; CSR in the agri-food system; human rights; analysis on the state of Italian agriculture and fruit and vegetable sector

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Guest Editor
CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
Interests: natural compounds; nutraceuticals; natural products; food science and nutrition; food composition databases; bioaccesibility; dietary intake
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Guest Editor
Department of Veterinary Science, University of Study of Messina, 98168 Messina, Italy
Interests: food microbiology; foodborne disease; predictive microbiology; natural antimicrobials; food risk assessment
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Guest Editor
CREA-Research Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
Interests: bioactive compounds; natural products; nutraceuticals; antioxidants; dietary supplements; food quality; nutrition; food composition databases; bioavailability, metabolic pathway; nanoformulations
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Food Safety and Quality Management Department, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia
Interests: food sustainability; food safety and quality; life cycle assessment of food; environmental footprints in the food supply chain; sustainable diets; sustainable food production; food modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,  

Food quality and safety are critically important to the economy and public health of all countries.  

With a view to the sustainable development of agriculture and agri-food industries, policies aim to improve their response to society's needs starting from safe, nutritious, and healthy food up to other product attributes related to ethical, environmental, and social concerns.   

Since the 1990s, the agri-food sector has grown rapidly, resulting in producers, processors, retailers, and governments implementing protocols concerning the food safety system, that is, a system ensuring the absence of possible negative impacts on consumer health. Nowadays, each actor in the food chain is subject to national and international requirements that demand the development and implementation of food safety management and assurance systems.   

At the same time, due to the increase in consumer awareness and demand, to help manufacturers achieve and demonstrate consistent quality, industry advisory groups establish quality standards that include good management practices, methods, systems, requirements, and/or specifications.   

It is in the producers' interest to provide safe and quality food, largely to protect their reputation, especially when food-safety problems arise. In this respect, food-chain actors are confronted with major challenges related to crisis and epidemiological situations, lacking and scarce resources, growing competition, and increasing customer expectations. Various external and internal factors influence economic and management performance in an organization, which has a direct impact on how well it is able in maintain its food safety and quality management system.   

The issue of how standards can promote food safety and quality undoubtedly plays a central role not only in the political and entrepreneurial debate but also in the daily life of consumers.  

On the one hand, standards play a primary role in the trust relationship between institutions, producers, and consumers, based largely on the perception of the qualitative aspects of products.  

On the other hand, the adoption of quality and safety standards applied throughout the entire food chain (production, handling, processing, transport, and storage) is increasingly becoming a mandatory choice. The global health emergency has shown, perhaps for the first time, how the components of the agri-food supply chain both interact with and produce impacts on national, regional, and global levels and the need for them to operate harmoniously and supportively in view of a “collective resilience", as well as the need to rethink, expand, and implement public and private standards that address the entire supply chain.  

At present, although there are numerous studies aimed at investigating the role of standards in the food chain to promote safety and quality, several questions still require an answer.   

This Special Issue on “Standards Promoting Food Safety and Quality” welcomes high-quality original research articles, in-depth conceptual papers, or reviews presenting novel findings and filling contemporary knowledge gaps.   

Some of the questions that could tackle the Special Issue theme include, but are not limited to, the following:   

  • How do the public and private standards providing food safety and quality promote the achievement of sustainable development and affect the firm's performance?    
  • What efforts are to be undertaken by the individual food operators of the food chain and policymakers to encourage the adoption of food safety and quality standards?   
  • How and to what extent do food quality and safety standards can affect agriculture and agri-food political strategies and impact on agriculture production?  
  • Which barriers can affect company's choice to adopt food safety and quality standards?  
  • In what ways has the opening of companies to international markets contributed to the adoption of quality and safety standards?   
  • What role do food quality and safety standards play in the current insecurity of the agri-food sector resulting from the pandemic and Ukrainian crisis?  
  • How and to what extent do food quality and safety standards contribute to the fight against food loss and waste?   
  • What role do food safety and quality audits play in the fight against food fraud and in improving consumer safety when buying food?  
  • How and to what extent do reporting standards promote food safety and quality?    
  • Within the framework of the consumers' perception of the quality and safety of food, how and to what extent do standards and their proliferation enable consumers to make informed decisions, and how are they positioned to the confidence placed in manufacturer or retailer brands? 

Dr. Brunella Arru
Lucia Briamonte
Dr. Massimo Lucarini
Dr. Filippo Giarratana
Dr. Alessandra Durazzo
Prof. Dr. Ilija Djekic
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 1849 KiB  
Article
Standardization: A Necessary Support for the Utilization of Sludge/Biosolids in Agriculture
by Ludovico Spinosa and Livia Molinari
Standards 2023, 3(4), 385-399; https://doi.org/10.3390/standards3040027 - 14 Nov 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1197
Abstract
One of the issues facing modern society, regardless of the socio-economic level of the communities involved, is the development of sustainable strategies for the management of sludge/biosolids. Nowadays, it is imperative to replace solutions aimed at simply “disposing of” with those oriented toward [...] Read more.
One of the issues facing modern society, regardless of the socio-economic level of the communities involved, is the development of sustainable strategies for the management of sludge/biosolids. Nowadays, it is imperative to replace solutions aimed at simply “disposing of” with those oriented toward “maximizing recovery benefits”. It is desirable that agricultural use remains the main option in sludge/biosolids management; however, to ensure effective and safe agronomic benefits, correctly fulfill the legal requirements, and build stakeholder and public confidence, rigorous and sustainable procedures need to be established. The development of realistic and enforceable regulations is crucial, as they represent the right balance between the different aspects of coordinated and effective management. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that regulations must be supported by standardized characterization procedures and good practice guidelines because well-defined procedures allow the legal requirements to be correctly and uniformly met, as well as to reliably compare the results obtained under different conditions and their wide application in different regulatory contexts. In this article, the main aspects for (i) the sustainable application of sludge/biosolids in agriculture and (ii) the development of standardized characterization methods and procedures, thus ensuring effective agronomic benefits and guaranteeing quality/safety of agricultural products, are discussed. Some pieces on the evolution of European legislation in this field are also provided. Details and results of the research activities behind the development of these methods/procedures can be found in the referenced documents. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Standards Promoting Food Safety and Quality)
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10 pages, 270 KiB  
Article
“Zero Residue” Concept—Implementation and Certification Challenges
by Ilija Djekic, Nada Smigic, Bozidar Udovicki and Nikola Tomic
Standards 2023, 3(2), 177-186; https://doi.org/10.3390/standards3020014 - 17 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2278
Abstract
This paper gives an overview of scientific challenges in implementing and certifying “Zero residue” approach. The rationale behind the concept is that final control of commodities during/immediately after harvesting should confirm that traces of all used plant protection products are less than or [...] Read more.
This paper gives an overview of scientific challenges in implementing and certifying “Zero residue” approach. The rationale behind the concept is that final control of commodities during/immediately after harvesting should confirm that traces of all used plant protection products are less than or equal to 0.01 mg/kg. To evaluate the risks in applying this concept, FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) as a tool has been used. Among the most common factors affecting the pesticide residue levels in fresh produce, the following three appeared to be the biggest challenges in the “Zero residue” concept implementation and certification process: the use of unregistered plant protection products, inadequate sampling plan, and inappropriate laboratory methods. The analysis showed that all three factors have strong influence on achieving “Zero residue” limits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Standards Promoting Food Safety and Quality)
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