Livsmedelsaktörernas syn på spårbarhet

Abstract

Introduction: There’re not many areas that affect so many people that provisions and provisional consumption does. We all consume different provisions in one way or another, even if it is with very different perspectives. Neither is what you consume calculable, but is changing at the different situations life brings. Consumption meets the different needs of different individuals and is very affecting in one's choice. The road from the farmer to the consumer is getting longer which means that consumers want more information about the final products to be able to evaluate the product within their own frames of references.

Background: Provisions that are produced and sold in the store should be obvious to consumer as safe to consume. But because of previous provisions scandals in Europe where traceability has been scarce, and with increased consumer awareness the safety also comes into question. It is assumed that the provisions produced are safe to ingest.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe how food companies look at internal and external traceability. The EC regulation aimed at food companies have to rely on external traceability by always checking one step forward and one step back in the grocery chain. The regulation does not, however, require internal traceability.

Method: With a phenomenographically approach four qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted in personal and via phone to get the detailed information about the current traceability as a phenomenon.

Results: The results indicated that the food companies' view on traceability and internal traceability was similar but the approach was different depending on what part of the grocery chain they belong to and the operational layout of each individual company. The regulation was nothing strange for the companies since it was natural wanting to produce safe provisions. However, there were outsiders claim to stay constantly updated, customer and consumer demands, media and other climatic conditions that were much more extensive than the regulation the companies worked towards in order to not lose important customers and consumers.

Discussion: The external demands towards the regulation produced results showing that the companies are doing more than what is required by the regulation. Some parts of the grocery chain, in this case retail put greater demands on their suppliers that also affected other companies, such as delivering comprehensive solutions and services to these suppliers to retail.

Conclusion: In a constantly changeable phenomenon such as traceability companies are keeping themselves up-to-date and constantly working towards satisfying its customers and consumers, enabling them to act more than regulation ordains. The procedure for complaints, flow of returns and withdrawals showed participants were more than eager keep the trust of its customers and consumers.