Food recalls in the Food Supply Chain : A qualitative study of different product flows in a retail context

Sammanfattning: The issue of food scandals originating from unsafe food has in recent years caught the attention of the public. Consequently, the number of food recalls has increased, and food retailers and food producers are getting questioned regarding their ability to provide consumers with safe food products. Thus, because the primary responsibility to deal with this problem is the food business operators who have real control over the products within the Food Supply Chain (FSC). Even though food safety has received more interest from academic researchers and practitioners in the latter years, we could identify that previous literature still lacks research on food recalls. In addition, prior research interprets food recalls as generalizable within the FSC and does not have its various product flows in mind. In order to fill the research gap, this study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of food recalls in the context of the different product flows within the FSC from a retailer perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how the occurrence and the consequences of food recall differ across various product flows within the FSC by focusing on four elements. The elements include the challenges within the FSC to ensure food quality, the reasons behind food recall, the types of food recall, and the consequences they infer. The current study had finally answered the following research question: “How do the occurrence and the consequences of food recalls differ across various product flows within the FSC?” In order to answer the research question and address the purpose of the thesis, a qualitative study was conducted by focusing on Swedish food retailers and conducting interviews with responsible Purchasers within each of the product flows, and additionally, Quality Assurance Managers. The sample of the semi-structured interviews was selected based on the position and experience of food recalls within the retailers. This to assure that the interviewees possessed sufficient insights regarding the studied field to fulfill the purpose of the study and answer its research question. From the gathered data, several themes were derived through the thematic analysis, and the analysis and discussion regarding the elements led us to a conclusion. The result confirmed that the various product flows, and in some cases, even specific products within the flows, need to be taken into consideration when the occurrence and the consequences of food recalls are addressed within the FSC. This is because the different product flows include different products with different characteristics making them more or less complex to handle along the chain and when carrying out food recalls. Even though previous theories assume a general approach, the findings still confirmed the theories regarding the challenges within the FSC to ensure food quality, the reasons behind recalls, the types of recalls, and the consequences the recalls can infer. However, the main differences found between our study and prior research regarding the FSC were that supply chain-related reasons are more commonly related to food reclaims and that environmental consequences are considered an additional consequence of food recalls.