The Paradox of Standard Setting

Globalization has engendered increased complexity in the modern society. This complexity penetrates almost every aspect of our life. In the context of food systems, globalized food supply chains have created greater challenges for assuring food safety, with myriad actors, who are economically, socially and culturally diverse, involved in the production and distribution processes. To manage such complexity, food safety standards have been established in order to assure the public interest. Nevertheless, food safety scandals persist on a global scale, in both developed and developing countries. This has revealed a problematic system of safety standard setting as well as an urge to re-examine the current food safety system. This book explores the dynamics and tensions between globalized value chain production and safety standard setting in the US broiler industry between the 1980s and the 2010s.