Resilience in the pork supply chain from the food safety perspective

Abstract

<p>Challenges in food production are plenty, while resources are scarce. In the interest of the consumer as well as the producer, it is of utmost importance to prevent unwanted events from happening. This may be done through focus on resilience in the pig and pork supply production in relation to food safety. In this paper, resilience—and its counterpart vulnerability—is introduced and discussed specifically for food safety. It is noted that to manage unwanted events, focus must be on effective handling on the event itself. But focus should also be on the patterns of events - including the trends in society which may be leading to increased or decreased risks. To gain a more comprehendsive understanding of these patterns, an analysis of the entire structure of the production system is necessary. Through an analysis of these three levels—event, patterns and structure—and their complex interrelationships, targeted prevention activeties may be identified and put in place to raise the system’s long-term resilience. Hereby, the risk to consumers and producers can be reduced to an acceptable level. Such risk-mitigating activities may consist of surveillance, own check systems, HACCP, risk analysis, and legislation including use of private standards.</p>