Public-Private Partnerships for Safer Food

Ensuring safe food is a shared responsibility that depends on capacity and collaboration across diverse public and private sector stakeholders. Experience shows that countries with more capacity to manage food safety risks have a better understanding of the importance of close cooperation between the various public and private sector stakeholders involved and are more proactive in developing and implementing partnerships. Public-private partnership (PPP) platforms in the spirit of trusted collaboration could accelerate the development process and serve as a win-win situation for the industry, competent authorities, and consumers. PPP platforms that connect diverse stakeholders with a mutual interest allow building relationships and trust that improve food safety outcomes—a win-win situation for the industry, food safety authorities, and consumers. PPP platforms also create opportunities to leverage resources, which can help bridge the financing gaps needed to achieve the goals every year.?Food safety-related platforms facilitating information exchange in public and private actors are particularly vital to have lasting positive impacts on countries’ public health and economies benefiting from enhanced food trade.

Why Partnerships for Food Safety Matter More Than Ever?

Around the world, some public and private sector stakeholders have for many years now been working in partnership to strengthen food safety outcomes. With the unprecedented disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, there have been more calls for partnership approaches across diverse sectors. What can we learn about existing PPPs for food safety? And how can we further encourage innovative PPPs to generate future food safety improvements?

Interest in public-private sector collaboration is growing, as governments search for alternative and innovative solutions to enhance their food control system, and small and medium-size enterprises seek new markets in the high-value domestic retail sector, locally, regionally, and globally.

There are different types of PPPs to improve food safety capacity and compliance, involving diverse stakeholders. While some of these partnerships focus on dialogue and information exchange, others go much further to develop and roll out a collaborative approach to the planning and implementation of food safety controls, accompanied by new legal and/or financing arrangements. While it often takes considerable time and effort to develop and sustain these partnerships, experience points to the value and rewards.

Key Types of PPPs in Food Safety:

Roundtables or other forums for regular dialogue, information exchange, and/or coordination on food safety policy priorities and investment needs.

Such roundtables and forums can convene relevant public and private sector stakeholders around requirements affecting market access for particular value chains or more broadly on existing and new food safety issues. National Codex Committees often play this role. For instance, in Senegal, the National Codex Committee brings together different parts of government involved in food safety, as well as representatives of multinational companies and local industry and trade associations, and provides a place for ongoing dialogue and exchange that builds trust.

Public-private collaboration focusing on specific tasks. These can be technical committees that develop or revise standards, guidelines, or codes of practice based on the national context.?

For instance, in Sri Lanka, government authorities joined forces with the Spice Council, a local industry and export association, to roll out vocational training on improved food safety and hygiene practices and upgrade infrastructure of local businesses.4 ?This boosted the productive capacities and competitiveness of the Ceylon cinnamon value chain, paving the way for transformational change in the sector. The collaboration also contributed to increased exports, potentially becoming a billion-dollar industry.

Government-business cooperation on regulatory practice to improve and promote compliance.?

Interest is growing in innovative models of partnerships with the food industry, which emerged in some developed countries over the last decade. This includes official recognition of some vTPA programs. Some regulatory authorities are assessing the industry’s use of such programs and certification schemes as part of their national food safety regulatory oversight frameworks, including as one factor to inform risk-based inspection and resource allocation decisions. For instance, in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, food safety regulators now recognize certain vTPA programs and integrate the audit results into their regulatory decision-making.

What Are vTPA Programs??

The Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) defines a vTPA program as “a non-governmental or autonomous scheme comprising the ownership of a standard that utilizes national/international requirements; a governance structure for certification and enforcement, and in which food business operator (FBO) participation is voluntary.”5 ?In other words, vTPA programs are formal and documented food safety and quality management systems developed and implemented by the private sector. A wide range of such programs exist from national industry association-owned schemes like the UK’s “Red Tractor,” to international programs like the British retail Consortium Global Standard for Food Safety, Global G.A.P., Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000), or the International Food Standard.

Drivers, Benefits, and Challenges of Public-Private Collaboration on Regulatory Practices:

Food business operators can use vTPA programs to drive improved hygiene practices, which strengthen consumer health protection, as well as opportunities for producers in developing countries to access new markets.

The CCFICS has identified the potential for regulatory authorities to make use of reliable data generated by vTPA programs to optimize enforcement practices, where there is agreement among all the parties involved on the scope and process of data sharing, as well as an enabling legal framework. This approach may reduce the frequency of inspection visits to some food businesses, although it does not alter regulatory responsibility, which remains clearly with the national authorities. One major change, however, is the need for regulators to fully understand the vTPA programs used in their jurisdictions, including how the standards used in such schemes are based on international standards, notably Codex.

While some point to the potential benefits—increased efficiencies, better targeting of resources for inspection, reduced inspections for better-performing businesses, improved outcomes—of greater regulatory cooperation on food safety, others see concerns. These include possible conflict of interest, free-rider problems, loss of transparency, and/or unclear accountability. There also are fears that official encouragement or recognition of vTPA programs may diminish the national food control system and may exclude small-scale operators, particularly in developing countries.7 ?This reflects concerns expressed in the past by some World Trade Organization (WTO) members that private assurance schemes include standards that might be more rigorous than international standards (Codex), increasing the cost of compliance and negatively affecting the ability of developing countries to trade.

Over the last year or two, there appears to be more appetite emerging among some countries to understand the vTPA approach and how it might strengthen the national food control system. This is reflected in the development of Codex guidelines for the use of voluntary third-party assurance programs, expected to be adopted in 2021.

What Is Needed for Successful PPPs?

PPPs offer numerous benefits for food safety stakeholders; however, their establishment also can be a challenge in many countries. As a starting point, industry leaders and policymakers should sign up to a shared objective, in this case the safeness of food. When there is a lack of motivation to join forces, policymakers can be persuaded through the public health, social, and economic benefits, such as increased access to safe and nutritious food, including reduced foodborne illnesses, larger sales and industry tax revenues, and opportunities for private sector development and employment linked to new markets.

Even if stakeholders agree on shared food safety objectives, partnerships can fail, particularly when trust is shaky or a culture of cooperation is not firmly established. For this reason, an honest broker through an international development agency can often act as a facilitator to help get the partnership up and running, although this approach cannot be considered risk-free. To be sustainable, the partnership must be based on strong national demand and ownership. The international partner must have the technical competency and soft skills to understand and adapt to the local context, as well as to coach the local stakeholders so that the partnership grows and thrives from the bottom up.

Food Safety as a Multidisciplinary Domain:

With regard to most complex partnerships, including coregulatory partnerships, additional prerequisites must be in place, like an effective national quality infrastructure system for integrity and sustainability. As long as countries lack internationally recognized certification, accreditation, or metrology services, food businesses will have to rely on external service providers from other countries, increasing their operational costs.

Governments and private sector stakeholders in many countries have invested billions of dollars and substantial time to develop robust food control and food safety management systems. In less-developed countries, public sector authorities responsible for food safety often lack the resources, competencies, infrastructure, and equipment for food control. There is scope for these governments to better leverage private initiatives, including vTPA programs, as part of an effort to invest more wisely in food safety and to make better decisions based on risk. Making the most of these opportunities will depend on increased investments in the services that are essential for a well-functioning food industry, including quality infrastructure.

Establishing and maintaining PPPs based on a coregulatory approach depends on trust, clarity of roles and responsibilities, and a continuous and open exchange of information across relevant competent authorities, including conformity assessment bodies, as well as the industry, vTPA service providers, and owners. Ideally, there is also a continuous, consent-based exchange of information among the actors involved, without threatening or overwriting the defined roles and responsibilities for food control.

Building Awareness and Knowledge on Best Practices:

Experts from the global food safety community, including food regulators and development practitioners, shared their views on how the vTPA approach could best be used in developing countries, with over 230 stakeholders from around the world. Key questions focused on the potential of vTPA approaches to help respond to the challenges posed by the global pandemic, the role of data, and how to foster trust across government and business.

What Do We Know about Regulatory Frameworks and Practices on vTPA Programs in Food and Feed Safety?

Regulators agreed on the benefits of cooperating with the private sector to support and not to diminish their roles and to multiply the results achieved by national food control systems. Over 75 percent of the survey respondents saw advantages of public-private cooperation, from improvements in food hygiene and safety to a more efficient allocation of resources and time for inspection, allowing official controls to focus on higher risks and opportunities to support improved compliance with national food safety regulations. These include an exchange of information between regulatory authorities and the third-party service entities (vTPA program owners and certification bodies) with the consent of food businesses.

But roughly half the respondents raised some concerns. These focused on possible additional financial costs for food operators, confidentiality and reliability of private assurance systems, regulatory capture, and duplication of existing laws and regulations. One respondent highlighted the risk that cooperation with vTPA programs may compromise the responsibility and accountability of the public sector for food/feed safety control, particularly in cases where food regulators lack core knowledge or competencies in their responsibilities.