Changes in appearance during the spoilage process of fruits and vegetables: Implications for consumer use and disposal

People waste a lot of food, especially at the consumption stage in consumer households. Despite the urgency of this topic, little is known about how consumers use visual inspection to decide to throw away fruits and vegetables at different stages of ripening and spoilage. We presented 366 US consumers with images of a banana, mango, cucumber,...

Guiding food safety authorities in inspection strategy design: A systems approach to food safety regulation

The Nederlandse- Voedsel en Warenautoriteit (NVWA) asked the at-first-sight simple question of how to combine risk-based and random methods for inspection. Risk-based and random inspection methods have contrasting incentives. Risk-based inspection increases efficiency and allocates resources efficiently but fails to regulate low and emergent...

How One of The World’s Oldest Food Safety Standards Approaches Expiration: The Case of German Beer

The paper at hand contemplatesthe effect of a centuries-old national food safety standard on innovation in aglobalizing market. To that end, the case of the German Beer Industry is analysedto explicate the relationship between a longstanding beer purity decree and brewinginnovation. Over 500 years of existence the so-called “Reinheitsgebot”,...

Trace element measurement for assessment of dog food safety

The quality of dog diets depends on adequate ingredients capable of providing optimal nutrition and free of contaminants, for promoting long-term health. Trace elements in 95 samples of dry food for dog puppies (n = 32) and adults (n = 63) of various brands were measured using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). The mass fractions...

Alternative approaches to food: Community supported agriculture in urban China

One of the most remarkable features of China's development path is its large-scale and fast-paced urbanization. As cities already accommodate more than half of China's population, new challenges to urban food systems have emerged concurrently. Concerns over environmental degradation and food safety have provoked growing dissatisfaction with...