The effects on European importers’ food safety controls in the time of COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has highlighted the fragility of the global economic system. In just a few months, the consequences of the pandemic have left their mark on the affected countries at all levels and without exception. This article analyses the profile of food safety notifications reported by European countries in the first five months of 2020. The aim was to detect possible changes in food safety regulations imposed by control authorities that could aggravate the economic impacts of the pandemic. While COVID-19 does not appear to be a foodborne disease, some outbreaks have been linked to imported food, which might have affected the food control behaviour of importing countries. In this study, contingency tables and clustering were used to assess differences between years and notification characteristics and to detect homogeneous groups to help identify how the reported notifications might have changed. In the period considered in this study, the volume of notifications on most imported foodstuffs decreased considerably. This decrease was a direct consequence of the fall in international trade, which might have increased countries’ reliance on domestic sources. The COVID-19 crisis has not caused a substantial change in the profile of European countries’ in terms of the characteristics of reported notifications (product category and risk decision). However, the worst affected countries have replaced border rejections with alerts, which may indicate greater reliance on intra-EU markets.

Analysis of Food Production and Consumption Based on the Emergy Method in Kazakhstan

“…Kazakhstan has to improve these kinds of local food productions in order to reduce the dependence on food imports. The COVID-19 pandemic situation is still serious and has seriously affected the worldwide trade, including food imports [ 66 , 67 , 68 ]. More attention needs to be given to the improvement of agriculture technology and management efficiency.…”

Food Security Risks of Countries along the Belt and Road in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

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“…Coluccia et al [9] discussed the effects of COVID-19 on agri-food supply and value chains in Italy. Marti et al [10] highlighted that control measures have important consequences for European food chains and agrifood export supply chains. As typically observed during public health emergencies, the restriction on international trade reduces the efficiency of the global trade network, and distorts the supply relationship.…”

Influence of Loss Aversion and Income Effect on Consumer Food Choice for Food Safety and Quality Labels

“…Cold-chain food is seen as being one of the major mediums of virus breeding and dissemination, as it carries the virus and raises the risk of infection through food production, processing, storage, packaging, and distribution ( Godoy et al, 2021 ; Han et al, 2021 ). The outbreak of epidemic disease has a huge impact on public health ( Djekic et al, 2021 ; Marti et al, 2021 ); thus, food safety issues have resurfaced as a global critical problem along with an increase in consumers’ concern about food safety ( Kitz et al, 2021 ). In fact, consumers’ food safety concerns and food quality demands have clearly transformed their food choices, resulting in changes in the economic structure and food production behavior ( Grunert et al, 2015 ; FAO, 2017 ).…”