Post 23. Food integrity

 

Food integrity

The Elliott Review in 2014, undertaken post the horsemen scandal described food integrity as being about the nature, substance and quality and safety of food, and "the way it has been sourced, procured, and distributed and being honest about those areas to consumers." [1] In a scientific paper in 2016 I described food integrity as being made up if four elements: product integrity, process integrity, data integrity and people integrity. [2] So what are these four elements?

Product integrity:

The demonstration that for a given food, its innate characteristics can be reliably and repeatedly demonstrated to be what it is claimed to be e.g. an apple is an apple; a Bramley apple is a Bramley apple; a Bramley apple pie contains Bramley apples and not another variety of apple.

Process integrity:

The processes used to produce the food item from farm to retail shelf. Often claims are made about the way the food is produced e.g. organic production, sustainable production, natural, fairly traded, high animal welfare etc.

Data integrity:

The integrity of the data associated with the food - is it authentic, accessible, representative, secure, does it support supply chain traceability and transparency? 

People integrity:

The way in which people interact in the food supply chain. Integrity means they act with honestly and build trust from farmer to kitchen.

The next series of posts will consider each of these elements in more detail.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elliott-review-into-the-integrity-and-assurance-of-food-supply-networks-final-report

[2] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cofs.2016.07.001