Food safety management by private actors: rationale and impact on supply chain stakeholders

This paper first presents a state of the art of international and European public policies on food safety in agrifood supply chains. It also reviews initiatives set by private actors in this field. The analysis focuses on the economic effects resulting from the combination of these two approaches compared to their potential effects in terms of the reduction of sanitary risks faced by consumers. Starting from a critical review of the literature and from an analysis based on the new industrial economics tools, the authors show how, under certain conditions, the objective of safety in agrifood supply chains may be only partially achieved because of economic distortions arising from the combined effect of public policies and private standards.