Identifying economic incentives for Canadian red meat and poultry processing enterprises to adopt enhanced food safety controls

This article presents the results of stage-one of a two-stage program of research study to identify the factors motivating adoption of enhanced food safety controls in the red meat and poultry processing enterprises in Canada. The results are reported in the form of illustrative quotations drawn from the in-depth interviews (n = 34) with food safety and quality assurance managers of these firms operate in Ontario. It highlights that decisions at the level of the firm are complex and motivated by a number of market-based, regulatory and liability incentives, and the impact of each incentive on the adoption of food safety controls highly depend on the characteristics of the firm and the market where it operate in. It emphasizes the importance of adopting an “incentive-based regulatory approach” in the Canadian food processing industry.