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This article discusses a number of issues that are influencing the evolution of food safety regulation in developed and, to a lesser extent, developing countries. Whilst not definitive, it aims to highlight those factors which are considered crucial to an understanding of contemporary food safety controls in both the public and private spheres. These issues include criteria applied to assess the need/justification for food safety regulation, relationships between public and private food safety control systems, alternative forms that public food safety regulation can take, strategic responses to food safety regulation, and the trade implications of national food safety controls. The article serves as an introduction to these issues, which are discussed at greater length in the other papers that make up this special issue of Food Policy.

Food labels play important third-party roles in the food marketing system through their impact on product design, advertising, consumer confidence in food quality, and consumer education on diet and health. However, current analysis focuses overwhelmingly on the label's direct use as a point-of-purchase shopping aid, even though such use is limited by consumers' information processing abilities and time. In rewriting label regulations, policy makers should consider the benefits and costs of the broad array of roles labels serve, with evaluation of alternative regimes based on their impacts on consumer behavior and seller strategy.

The future competitiveness of the U.S. food industry depends on its ability to deliver highquality products at competitive prices to domestic and intemational markets. Recent developments in the establishrnent and operation of quality management metasystems are having important effects on this competitiveness. Their use has the potential to enhance product quality, simplify contractual relationships, demonstrate compliance with regulations, and improve responsiveness to customers. Their use is also requiring novel intemal organization and market linkages between firms.M 'any recent developments in the adoption of food quality management sys-.tems representa switch toward the application of metasystems and metastandards. 1 This follows similar trends in other nonfood industries, with efforts focused on reducing product waste, complying with contractual requirements, responding to consumer demands, managing risk, and demonstrating that technical product and process standards are being met. A common though not exclusive incentive for adoption of these systems in the food industry is the management of food safety attributes. Here we discuss how adoption of new quality management metasystems is affecting the operation of the food system and how these effects might be quantified. To do so, we focus on the characteristics and effects of three types of quality metasystems: those mandated by governments through regulatory

Public concern about food safety is placing increasing pressure on government agencies to be more prescriptive and proactive in their regulation of the food industry. However, given the scarcity of public sector resources, concerns about the impact of regulation on competitiveness and the scale of the task at hand, there is growing interest in co-regulation, with public and private sectors working hand-in-hand to deliver safer food at lower (regulatory) cost. This paper explores the scope for the co-regulation of food safety in the UK and North America, where there are distinct differences in the established regulatory processes. The authors conclude that opportunities clearly exist, to varying degrees in the different countries analysed, but that considerable obstacles remain to the widespread adoption of co-regulatory practices in the area of food safety.