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Has files: YesSubject: search.filters.subject.300605 Food safety, traceability, certification and authenticity

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    The interface between ethical leadership and food safety culture in Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Management, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2025-05-20) Newport-Smith, Wendy
    Measuring, evaluating and improving food safety culture is a priority for Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses. This is driven by the desire to produce food of the highest quality that safeguards consumers, protects the reputation of New Zealand Inc., and meets the requirements of international standards and regulations. This is the first in-depth qualitative investigation into food safety culture and ethical leadership in Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses, including some of this country’s largest food exporters. Using a mixed methods approach this research has provided unique, contemporary understanding and insights, while simultaneously providing a novel contribution to the body of knowledge. Two research workstreams were used; the first a quantitative workstream involving a voluntary survey of manufacturing and distribution employees in New Zealand’s largest food business; a dataset of responses to food safety and ethical leadership questions from 1181 individuals. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) applied to Lickert-scale variables, combined with multivariable modelling, this research found a positive relationship between food safety culture and ethical leadership and evidence for differences in responses according to several respondee characteristics. These included associations between PCA coordinates that captured variation in individual responses to food safety and ethical leadership questions, and the supplementary variables: role (e.g. staff or supervisor), site and gender. Ethical leadership has been shown to improve effectiveness, performance and safety at an organisational and individual level. Therefore strategies to improve ethicality across Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses in order to improve food safety culture and ensure safer food outcomes are suggested: consultatively developing organisational values which are well communicated and lived; ensuring ethical considerations when hiring staff; ethical considerations when setting expectations, and in training and mentoring staff and managing performance processes including the use of consequences; and modelling good behaviour, making fair decisions, ensuring open, clear communication and giving employees a voice. While largely positive, the quantitative strand did reveal a level of dissatisfaction with both ethical leadership and food safety culture, suggesting room for improvement. Further research is needed to better understand management’s, supervisors’ and workers’ perspectives on both aspects. The second workstream involved one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 32 founders, owners and senior food safety and quality personnel from 31 Aotearoa New Zealand food companies with thematic data analysis resulting in five key themes: Values; Responsible Stewardship of Natural Resources; Māori Worldview; Ecosystem Pressures and Leadership. The issues identified to be important to Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses include: individual, managerial and organisational values; leadership and management commitment in influencing organisational, food safety and ethical climate and culture; inter-generational value-creation, sustainable practice and acting as kaitiakitanga meaning guardianship or protection. This research has also provided insight into the drivers for and primary challenges related to food safety for Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses. This research has contributed to an up-to-date understanding of the characteristics of ethical leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand, who, according to this study, are humble, honest, respect indigenous Māori values, and are not corrupt. They have a degree of relatedness, care about our natural environment, have a strong sense of identity or place, are collaborative, are fair, and are accountable. Our size, Indigenous Māori worldview, and our geographical isolation contribute to the unique interpretation and application of these leadership characteristics in Aotearoa New Zealand. Several limitations are acknowledged, not the least of which was the context for this research which began at the outset of the global pandemic, with both positive and negative consequences. The use of one, albeit large food business in the quantitative workstream is noted, as is the focus of the participants in the qualitative workstream. Broadening this research to all hierarchical levels in several food businesses would be of benefit, and this is one of a number of research recommendations for the future. The positive correlation between ethical leadership and food safety culture found in this research suggests that maintaining and improving the ethicality of leaders within Aotearoa New Zealand food businesses may positively influence food safety culture and therefore, the production of safer food.
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    Achieving effective traceability systems for the domestic fresh produce industry in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Food Technology at Massey University, Albany Campus, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2019) Gao, Jiaojiao
    A reliable and effective traceability system is important to the food industry especially when a foodborne illness outbreak occurs. In particular, fresh fruit and vegetables are highly perishable, fragile, seasonal, diverse products with relatively short shelf life, thereby making their value chain complex and fast-paced. Hence, the traceability system in the fresh produce industry becomes critical in the event of a food crisis where products need to be tracked and traced in a timely manner. The objective of this study was to investigate current traceability systems in the fresh produce industry in New Zealand and also to explore potential improvement in the traceability system along the domestic supply chains. There were four different methods applied in this study: observation of traceability information available on fresh produce products, interviews with industry participants using a questionnaire, survey strategy by means of a questionnaire that was sent to growers, and a pilot study using GS1 technology to examine a modelled traceability system in two supply chains of strawberries. There were 336 fresh produce samples observed for traceability information analysis throughout the supply chain. Four growers, three wholesalers and one retailer from the fresh produce industry participated the face to face interviews. The questionnaire developed in the survey was sent to 578 growers with 40 of them responded and answered. Two pallets of strawberries were selected and GS1 (Global Standards One) barcodes and systems were used in the pilot study to track and trace each strawberry punnet throughout the supply chains. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from produce traceability data samples, interviewed industry stakeholders, surveyed growers, and the pilot study to generate empirical information on traceability systems along fresh produce supply chains in New Zealand. Subsequently, data were analysed using quantitative tools such as frequency distributions, Chi-Square test (X2) and Fisher’s Exact test, and qualitative descriptions in this study. The findings show that fragmentation of product traceability information, lack of standardisation in data format and information asymmetry exist in the domestic fresh produce industry. As only a ‘one-up, one-down’ traceability system for food businesses is required by regulators in New Zealand, industry players intend to solely focus on their own or internal needs without recognising the importance of an industry-wide traceability system in the fresh produce supply chain. The findings pose a question mark as to whether or not the ‘one-up, one-down’ traceability requirement is sufficient for the fresh produce industry. The findings also indicate that an effective and efficient external traceability system throughout the fresh produce value chain in New Zealand is feasible to implement by industry-wide cooperation from growers, packers, transporters and receivers/buyers. This study fills the gap found in the literature where few academic papers focused attention on traceability systems in the fresh produce industry in New Zealand.