Modeling critical factors for assessing Indian food safety practices
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management
ISSN: 0265-671X
Article publication date: 29 November 2018
Abstract
Purpose
India is in the process to achieve an important place in $2,000bn global food trade. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need to develop a food safety system which is well written down in line with international practices that are highly coordinated based on self-compliance to assure consumer protection. Accordingly, many organizations undergo assessment of their food safety system to verify compliance internally as well as externally. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight on the critical factors and benefits by evaluating the food safety assessment practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire-based survey is conducted among 96 Indian food business operators and regulators involved in assessment practices to obtain critical factors for the assessment of food safety practices. The questionnaire captures indicators for motivations or challenges and benefits of food safety assessment to identify critical factors using exploratory factor analysis. Model for the food safety assessment practices was developed based on multiple regression analysis by determining the impact of factors on the benefits of food safety assessment.
Findings
This paper identifies four factors responsible for assessing food safety practices, namely, business-centric approach, legislative needs, technical practices and organization resentment as a combination of reasons and challenges along with two benefits risk: protection and organization reinforcement. The regression analysis indicates that the organization reinforcement gets positively impacted by business and technical practices and negatively by organization resentment. Risk protection has a significant relationship with legislative needs.
Originality/value
This is the first attempt to systematically explore the factors around the assessment of food safety practices in India. This study provides inputs for the practical application of managers and regulators.
Keywords
Citation
Shukla, S., Singh, S.P. and Shankar, R. (2018), "Modeling critical factors for assessing Indian food safety practices", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 35 No. 10, pp. 2272-2288. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQRM-07-2017-0144
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited