Industrial Food Quality - Policy and Management in Favour of Sustainable Development. A study of the French food sector

Abstract: The report, designed for interested parties of the industrial food industry in France, is founded on three research questions inspired by literature studies of sustainable development, management of corporate social responsibility, industrial food production and food product quality. The research questions search for the identification and explanation of critical categories of concern relevant for addressing in industrial food quality policies in favour of sustainable development, the role of management tools (i.e. voluntary and informative steering instruments) and further steering instruments for enhanced industrial management. The empirical information of the report consists of qualitative data derived from a self-administered questionnaire based on five questions representing the three research questions, and applied in the entity of interviews made with 12 stakeholders selected as representatives of the French industrial food sector. The report can conclude that five categories of concern, i.e. satisfaction, health, environment, ethics and economics, summarized in the SHEEE model, have found support from the interviewed stakeholders and could be suggested as a potentially applicable framework in industrial policy development of food quality favouring a sustainable development. The crucial role of management tools for industrial adoption is confirmed by the research and three principal steering instruments are recommended for enhanced industrial management: 1) Voluntary instruments in the form of less rigorous operational management systems and increased availability of standards for objective setting; 2) Industry self-regulation for the incorporation of operational management systems and standards for objective setting as well as professional support and amplification of the trust vis-à-vis the consumer; 3) Informative instruments in the form of product labelling verified by third party (i.e. ISO Type I) in combination with further-going information from the producers enabled through off-pack communication (i.e. other information carriers than the packaging) such as private web sites. The benefits of this combination would be consumer trust, information value, awareness raising, little bureaucracy and incentives for sector wide quality improvement. In accordance with the scope of the thesis and the focus on the business agenda, the administrative and economic steering instruments appear only in the form of drivers and barriers of industrial management. Against the background of diverse reactions from stakeholders upon the role and appreciation of regulation and economic steering, those instruments will not be recommended as sole instruments and will thus not take predominant roles in the final recommendations. Moreover, these instruments will not assist companies on their way to increased efficiency of industrial operations and the need for voluntary instruments in the form of management tools will still be prevailing. Finally, suggestions upon subjects for future research would include possibilities for industry self-regulation of the French food sector, and optimisation programmes of labelling schemes with regards to inclusion of categories of concern and integration within the product life cycle.