Prevention of food fraud and fraud emulation among companies in the supply chain based on a social Co-governance framework.

This study develops a three-party evolutionary game model among upstream raw material producers, midstream food producers, and downstream distributors in the food supply chain, and investigates food fraud and fraud emulation among companies in the same group based on a food safety social co-governance framework. Moreover, the equilibrium points are divided into four scenarios according to the number of groups of companies committing fraud in the supply chain and whether companies in the same group emulate each other's fraudulent behavior. The stability conditions of these scenarios are also discussed and verified by numerical simulation in MATLAB. The results show that the behavioral strategy choices of different groups of food companies in the supply chain are closely related to the level of social co-governance involving the government, market, and consumers. Government regulation, supervision between companies, and consumer reporting can all change companies' behavioral strategies. Although the level of fraud emulation among companies in the same group does not change their behavioral strategy choice, it affects the time it takes for their behavioral strategy to evolve to a stable state. Moreover, the level of social co-governance directly affects companies' behavioral strategy choices at different emulation levels.

Safe Food Supply Chain as Health Network: An Evolutionary Game Analysis of Behavior Strategy for Quality Investment.

There is a natural relation between human health and the quality of their food and drinks, and elevating the quality input level of food production for all enterprises within the food supply chain system forms the foundation for preventing various potential food safety risks that may be encountered. Unlike the previous research on quality investment of food production by enterprises, this paper probes into the evolutionary routes of the behavior strategy selection of subjects in the food supply chain and the preconditions for the equilibrium points of the social co-governance system. It takes the approach of establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of food suppliers, food manufacturers and consumers on the basis of the social co-governance framework, in view of the above, this paper focuses on the influence of the reputation mechanism and the market contracts among supply chain subjects on the selection of a behavior strategy for quality investment by enterprises under the condition of lawful regulation by government. The results show that every subject selects their own behavior strategy on the basis of the balance of their respective interests. The net disbursement incurred by enterprises for quality investment and the costs of participation in governance by consumers constitute the dominant factors that influence both enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy and the level of social co-governance. Compared with the increase in economic punishment imposed on suppliers for production of risky food raw materials, it is more efficient to control food safety risks by lowering the costs of quality investment by suppliers. Accordingly, this paper proposes advice on policy in an attempt to provide inspiration for preventing and controlling food safety risks.

Classification and Prediction of Food Safety Policy Tools in China Based on Machine Learning.

Governments use policy interventions to mitigate food safety risks. Despite its crucial role, empirical studies evaluating the effectiveness of China's food safety policy tools are scarce. Drawing on a dataset encompassing 11,236 food safety policy texts from 2005 to 2021 and the incidence of problematic food products in the Eastern, Central, and Western regions of China, this study employs Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) models to facilitate the classification of policy tools and forecast the effectiveness of policy combinations. The study reveals that (1) local governments have gradually become an important supplementary maker of food safety policies, and have issued an increasing number of policy tools year by year. (2) Mandatory policy tools are predominant in number and have the highest legal hierarchy and authority levels, followed successively by guiding policy and voluntary policy tools. (3) Mandatory policy tools demonstrated the most effective intervention results, followed successively by guiding policy and voluntary policy tools. (4) The forecast analysis reveals that combinations of policies within high-growth frameworks and those driven by mandatory regulations emerge as the most effective. Therefore, the balance of policy tools in terms of type, effectiveness, and quantity, as well as their applicability in different situations, should all be taken into account.

Study on Key Factors Influencing Coordination Effectiveness of Food Safety Coordinating Body: Lessons from the Chinese Context.

Many countries have established food safety coordination agencies to strengthen cooperation between government agencies. Due to different national conditions, there are differences in the coordination agencies of different countries, but there are also many similarities. This article studies the key factors influencing the coordination effectiveness of China's food safety coordinating body, so as to enhance interagency collaboration. The results show that the coordination ability of the coordinating body's head, the authority degree of the coordinating body, the clarity degree of the agency's legal responsibility, and the clarity degree of the coordination goal are key factors influencing the coordination effectiveness. The conclusions indicate that the key factors influencing the coordination effectiveness of China's food safety commissions are similar to the key factors in Western countries, without evident differences due to national situations, social systems, and cultures. This article will be useful to policymakers and public sector managers in terms of understanding which key factors influence the coordination effectiveness of coordinating agencies. Moreover, this study provides a perspective for the academic circle from which to understand the main problems faced in the interagency collaborative governance of food safety risks in China.

Research on the Impact of Consumer Experience Satisfaction on Green Food Repurchase Intention.

With the continuous improvement in people's living standards and the change in consumption concept, green food is favored by more and more consumers. Consumer repurchase behavior is a necessary condition to activate the market, expand the consumption scale and stabilize the continuous growth of the market. Repurchase intention is the most direct factor affecting consumers' green food repurchase intention. Therefore, it is necessary to study consumers green food repurchase intentions. This study collects data from 303 consumer surveys on green food consumption to explore the impact of consumer satisfaction with consumption experience on green food repurchase intention and further explore the mechanisms and influence boundaries. The results show that (1) consumer experience satisfaction positively affects green food repurchase intention; (2) consumer experience satisfaction can improve consumers' green food repurchase intention through consumer perceptions of social value, green self-efficacy and warm glow; (3) the higher the degree of consumer inertia, the stronger the influence of green self-efficacy and warm glow on consumers' green food repurchase intention; and (4) the higher the degree of consumer subjective norms, the stronger the influence of consumer perceived social value, green self-efficacy and warm glow on the consumer's green food repurchase intention. This study provides a new perspective and theoretical framework for promoting consumers' green food repurchase intention, and it may have certain theoretical significance and practical impact on green food market growth, sustainable carrying of the ecological environment and high-quality development of agriculture.

Food manufacturer willingness to employ blockchain technology system under the social Co-governance framework: China's situation.

The blockchain technology system has gradually come to be employed in the food supply chain system, and it has emerged that the system offers the unique function of effectively curbing counterfeiting by food manufacturers. Unlike previous research on adoption by enterprises of new technology, this paper probes into the specific evolutionary routes of game subjects from the perspective of the precondition for enterprises' willingness to employ blockchain technology on the basis of China's social co-governance framework and by establishing a tripartite evolutionary game model of food manufacturer, government and consumer. The study then tests and verifies the stability conditions of equilibrium points and the relationship between these equilibrium points and the social co-governance level through numerical simulation analysis. On the above basis, the expected market proceeds of food producers employing blockchain technology and the influence of government and consumer behavior on enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy and the level of social co-governance are analyzed. The results show that every subject selects their own behavior strategy on the basis of the balance of their respective interests, and the final stability condition of the system is independent of their initial intentions. Rather, the expected sales volume of foods employing blockchain technology, governmental behavior (e.g., supervision, casual inspection, economic punishment, and fiscal subsidies), and complaints made by consumers constitute the main factors that influence food enterprises' selection of a behavior strategy. The level of social co-governance and the behavior of both government and consumers will ultimately be accomplished by influencing enterprises' expected economic returns, and the selection of an enterprise behavior strategy internally depends on the expected economic returns from producing foods employing blockchain technology. Therefore, this paper makes relevant proposals in an attempt to assist the Chinese government to better promote and popularize the blockchain technology system among food manufacturing enterprises.

Impact of online public opinion regarding the Japanese nuclear wastewater incident on stock market based on the SOR model.

The exposure of the Japanese nuclear wastewater incident has shaped online public opinion and has also caused a certain impact on stocks in aquaculture and feed industries. In order to explore the impact of network public opinion caused by public emergencies on relevant stocks, this paper uses the stimulus organism response(SOR) model to construct a framework model of the impact path of network public opinion on the financial stock market, and it uses emotional analysis, LDA and grounded theory methods to conduct empirical analysis. The study draws a new conclusion about the impact of online public opinion on the performance of relevant stocks in the context of the nuclear waste water incident in Japan. The positive change of media sentiment will lead to the decline of stock returns and the increase of volatility. The positive change of public sentiment will lead to the decline of stock returns in the current period and the increase of stock returns in the lag period. At the same time, we have proved that media attention, public opinion theme and prospect theory value have certain influences on stock performance in the context of the Japanese nuclear wastewater incident. The conclusion shows that after the public emergency, the government and investors need to pay attention to the changes of network public opinion caused by the event, so as to avoid the possible stock market risks.

The impact of capitalist profit-seeking behavior by online food delivery platforms on food safety risks and government regulation strategies.

Capital monopolized platforms that have emerged based on the new "Internet Plus" economic form will undoubtedly distort market competition. Taking the Meituan online food delivery platform in China as an example, this study (1) investigates the game of interests between the platform and restaurants and the resulting impact on food safety risks, and (2) explores the interactions among government regulations, platform profit strategy, and restaurant behavior. An evolutionary game model between the capital-monopolized online food delivery platform and the restaurants was developed with an optional promotion fee and government regulation level as variables. Analysis of four equilibrium situations derived from the evolutionary game model showed that the platform always pursued high overall profit in every equilibrium situation. This capitalist profit-seeking behavior will most likely reduce the profit margins and even the survival space of restaurants on the platform, forcing them to engage in opportunistic behavior and illegal production, thereby resulting in increased food safety risks in online food delivery and consequently increased government regulation costs. Although increased government regulation can change the production strategy of restaurants, it cannot change the platform's capitalist profit-seeking behavior. The platform's overall payoff is not reduced due to increased regulation, which once again proves the profit-seeking nature of capital. The strategy of low commissions but high promotion fees may require greater government regulation to restrain the opportunistic behavior of restaurants. Therefore, the Chinese government regulators can achieve a win-win situation of improved government regulation efficiency and reduced regulation costs by designing new regulatory strategies that do not reduce the platform's overall payoff.

Study on effect of collaborative governance participation willingness of online food delivery platform restaurants and consumers from perspective of control theory: Based on moderating effects of perceived risks.

The popularization of the Internet and the convenience of e-commerce are driving the online restaurant industry's rapid development of worldwide. However, serious information asymmetries in online food delivery (OFD) transactions not only aggravate food safety risks, resulting in simultaneous government and market failures, but also intensify consumers' perceived risks. This paper innovatively constructs a research framework for the governance participation willingness of OFD platform restaurants and consumers under the moderating effects of perceived risks from the perspective of control theory and then develops scales for analyzing the governance willingness of both restaurants and consumers. Using data collected through a survey, this paper explores the effect of control elements on governance participation by restaurants and consumers and analyzes the moderating effects of perceived food safety risks. Results showed that both government regulations and restaurant reputation (formal control elements) and online complaints and restaurant management response (informal control elements) can increase governance participation willingness among both platform restaurants and consumers. The moderating effects of perceived risks are partially significant. When the risks perceived by restaurants and consumers are strong, government regulation and online complaints can more effectively boost the governance participation willingness of restaurants and consumers, respectively. At this moment, consumers' willingness to pursue problem solving through online complaints is evidently enhanced. Accordingly, the perceived risks and the online complaints jointly motivate restaurants and consumers to participate in governance activities.

Crisis Management Experience from Social Media: Public Response to the Safety Crisis of Imported Aquatic Products in China during the Pandemic.

China's outbreak related to cold-chain aquatic product quality and safety in 2020 caused public panic and further led to a crisis in China's aquatic industry. This paper uses topic clustering and emotion analysis methods to text-mine the comments of netizens on Sina Weibo to study the main features of the public's views on the administration's crisis management measures and to provide experience for future imported food safety management. The findings show that for the imported food safety incident and the risk of virus infection, the public response had four types of characteristics: a higher proportion of negative emotion; a wider range of information demand; attention paid to the whole imported food industry chain; and a differentiated attitude towards control policies. Based on the online public response, countermeasures to further improve the management ability of imported food safety crises are proposed as follows: the government should pay active attention to the development trend of online public opinion; work more on exploring the content of public concern and emotion; strengthen the risk assessment of imported food and establish the classification and management measures of imported food safety events; construct the imported food safety traceability system; build a special recall mechanism for imported food safety; and improve the cooperation between government and media, enhancing the public's trust in policies.

A Review of the Challenges Facing Global Commercialization of the Artificial Meat Industry.

The sustained growth of global meat consumption incentivized the development of the meat substitute industry. However, long-term global commercialization of meat substitutes faces challenges that arise from technological innovation, limited consumer awareness, and an imperfect regulatory environment. Many important questions require urgent answers. This paper presents a review of issues affecting meat substitute manufacturing and marketing, and helps to bridge important gaps which appear in the literature. To date, global research on meat substitutes focuses mainly on technology enhancement, cost reduction, and commercialization with a few studies focused on a regulatory perspective. Furthermore, the studies on meat substitute effects on environmental pollution reduction, safety, and ethical risk perception are particularly important. A review of these trends leads to conclusions which anticipate the development of a much broader market for the meat substitute industry over the long term, the gradual discovery of solutions to technical obstacles, upgraded manufacturing, the persistent perception of ethical risk and its influence on consumer willingness to accept meat substitutes, and the urgent need for constructing an effective meat substitute regulatory system.

Nutritional quality and consumer health perception of online delivery food in the context of China.

BACKGROUND: Today, the popularization of mobile internet technology has enabled the public's need for food convenience and diversity arising from modern fast-paced lifestyles to be met at a relatively low cost. The digital age of the restaurant industry has arrived. Online food delivery (OFD) is rapidly developing globally. However, the public's awareness of the nutritional quality of food through OFD and their knowledge of dietary nutrition remain to be investigated. METHODS: In the context of China, this study attempts to evaluate the nutritional quality of best-selling OFD set meals (i.e., meal combos) based on the current official Chinese dietary guidelines 2022. It accomplishes this by collecting data on popular OFD restaurants among consumers in 115 Chinese universities from the restaurants' delivery addresses. Moreover, 20,430 valid questionnaires were collected online from undergraduates, graduate students, and other young groups aged 18-30 throughout China for descriptive analysis to investigate consumers' perceptions of the nutritional quality of food through OFD and its health impact. RESULTS: The results of the nutritional quality evaluation of the OFD set meals ranged widely from 15 to 85, with a mean of 36.57 out of a possible maximum score of 100; and 89.56% scored less than 50. The nutritional quality of OFD foods was thus generally low. The nutritional quality of foods was negatively correlated with their popularity among consumers. CONCLUSIONS: Young OFD consumers generally paid low attention to dietary nutrition knowledge and seldom paid attention to nutritional quality when choosing OFD foods while the nutritional quality of OFD foods was generally low. Respondents subjectively reported that long-term consumption of OFD food caused weight gain, increased blood lipids, and gastrointestinal discomfort. They thought that the reason might be excessive oil, salt, and sugar in the food, while ignoring the balance between different types of food.

Public-Public Collaboration for Food Safety Risk Management: Essence, Modes, and Identification of Key Influencing Factors Using DANP.

Objective: Food safety risk management is an important cross-boundary issue from both theoretical and practical standpoints. Because food safety has the social attributes of public goods, public-public collaboration can be considered a particularly important mode of cross-boundary governance. The study aims to provide a theoretical basis for the Chinese government to promote public-public collaboration for food safety risk management by identifying key factors. Methods: Based on a review of literature across diverse fields, such as political science, sociology, and new public governance, this study discusses the essence, modes, and dilemma of public-public collaboration for food safety risk management using practical explorations in various countries as the main thread and taking into account the actual situation in China. Moreover, this study quantitatively analyzes the relationships between the dimensions and factors affecting public-public collaboration and identifies key dimensions and factors using the Decision-making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-based Analytic Network Process (DANP). Results: Among the 20 factors in the calculation results of DANP, Lawmaking has the highest value of (fi +ei ) (7.022) and ranks sixth in terms of influence weight. The (fi +ei )value of Professionalism (6.993) ranks second and its influence weight ranks fourth. The (fi +ei ) value of Administrative enforcement (6.722) ranks fifth, and its influence weight ranks seventh. The (fi +ei ) value of Improvement of the social environment (6.699) ranks sixth, and its influence weight ranks fifth. The (fi +ei ) value of Legal authorization (6.614) ranks seventh, and its influence weight ranks tenth. Data analysis indicated that these are the five key factors affecting the governance capacity in public-public collaboration for food safety risk management. Conclusion: The legal basis is the most important dimension affecting public-public collaboration. Legislation-based governance, administrative law enforcement-based governance, and social environment improvement-based governance in the behavior and capabilities dimension, professionalism in the basic characteristics dimension, and laws and regulations in the legal basis dimension are the five key factors.

Consumers' decoy effect when purchasing pork with traceability technologies.

Despite government investment, policy guidance, and publicity, it has been difficult to establish a traceable food market in China over the past 2 decades. Once a food safety problem occurs, it is difficult to implement effective traceability, recall, and accountability along the food supply chain. How to use the decoy effect to promote the development of China traceable food market? As bounded rationality, a decoy effect exists when adding an alternative to a choice set increases the chance an existing alternative to be chosen. However, few studies have examined the decoy effect in food purchases. Based on consumers in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, we show the decoy effect in traceable pork hindquarter purchases and that the effects differ across product quality and price attributes. The effects are heterogeneous across consumers and are less likely to occur among those who had a personal annual income of more than 50,000 yuan (USD $7,000), were married, and had minor children in the family. These findings have implications on leveraging the influence of the decoy effect on consumer behavior and facilitating the construction of food traceability systems.

Responsibility of citizens in food safety social co-governance in the context of China.

Objective: This study aims to identify all actors that hold some responsibility for ensuring food safety based on the complete food supply chain in the context of China's current circumstances. Methods: The study was conducted among citizens in Wuxi, Jiangsu, China. All citizens fully understood the purpose of the study and voluntarily agreed to participate. From December 10 to 14, 2020, a total of 398 valid samples were collected by the researchers using a structured questionnaire. Survey data were assessed using best-worst scaling and a mixed logit model from the perspective of citizen responsibility. Results: In descending order, responsibility for ensuring food safety goes from food producers and traders (including producers, distributors, and retailers) to the government, social organizations, news media, and finally to citizens. Food producers and traders are the actors who should take the greatest responsibility, whereas citizens bear the least responsibility. Conclusion: The responsibility of citizens in food safety co-governance should be recognized but it should not be arbitrarily extended.

Influence of Framing Effect on Consumers' Purchase Intention of Artificial Meat-Based on Empirical Analysis of Consumers in Seven Cities.

Artificial meat is a type of food that has emerged in recent years. It is similar in shape, color, and taste to meat. Its market scale is developing rapidly, and its future development prospect is bright. To explore Chinese consumers' purchasing intention regarding artificial meat products, this study used the framing effect theory to analyze the differences in consumers' purchasing intentions under different information frames based on the survey data of 6,906 consumers from seven cities in China. Hierarchical regression and variance analysis explored the moderating effects of consumers' product knowledge level and health motivation on the frame effect. The results show that consumers' purchase intention under the positive information frame is significantly higher than that under the negative information frame. Consumers with higher product knowledge levels have higher purchase intention under the positive information frame, whereas consumers with lower health motivation have lower purchase intention under the two information frames. The government and relevant enterprises should focus on promoting positive information about artificial meat products, improving consumers' cognition level of artificial meat products, guiding consumers to form a scientific diet concept to enhance their purchase intention of artificial meat products, and promoting the healthy development of the artificial meat industry.

Analysis of factors influencing public attention to masks during the COVID-19 epidemic-Data from Sina Weibo.

As we all know, vaccination still does not protect people from novel coronavirus infections, and wearing masks remains essential. Research on mask attention is helpful to understand the public's cognition and willingness to wear masks, but there are few studies on mask attention in the existing literature. The health belief model used to study disease prevention behaviors is rarely applied to the research on mask attention, and the research on health belief models basically entails the use of a questionnaire survey. This study was purposed to establish a health belief model affecting mask attention to explore the relationship between perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy, perceived impairment, action cues and mask attention. On the basis of the establishment of the hypothesis model, the Baidu index of epidemic and mask attention, the number of likes and comments on Weibo, and the historical weather temperature data were retrieved by using software. Keyword extraction and manual screening were carried out for Weibo comments, and then the independent variables and dependent variables were coded. Finally, through binomial logistic regression analysis, it was concluded that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity and action cues have significant influences on mask attention, and that the accuracy rate for predicting low attention is 93.4%, and the global accuracy is 84.3%. These conclusions can also help suppliers make production decisions.

Citizen Characteristics and Their Participation in Food Safety Social Co-governance: Public Health Implications.

Objective: Given that positive psychological capital motivates citizens to actively participate in social affairs, this study aims to provide insight into food safety risk management in China by empirically determining which individual characteristics are associated with positive psychological capital for actively participating in social co-governance. Methods: A questionnaire-based survey was undertaken between December 5 and 10, 2020. The study participants were residents of Wuxi in China over the age of 18 years. A validated and pretested questionnaires was used to elicit responses with the participants. Student's t-test and one-way analysis of variance were performed to determine which individual characteristics are significantly correlated with the psychological capital of citizens who participate in co-governance. Post-hoc multiple comparisons were performed for each individual characteristic with a significant correlation to determine which categories of these characteristics yielded the significant differences. Study data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0. Results: A total of 752 completed responses were received. Most respondents were females (52.39%), aged 26-45 (66.09%), married (70.48%), company employees (44.28%), and in good health (89.76%). Most had a household size of 3 (55.98%), a bachelor's degree (40.96%), a personal annual income of more than 100,000 yuan (26.46%), and no children aged under 18 (50.27%) or pregnant women (93.22%) in their households. Data analysis indicated that education, income, and health status significantly associate with the psychological capital of citizens to participate in co-governance. Citizens with high education, high income, and good health status have higher psychological capital to participate in co-governance. Conclusion: The present study suggested citizens are likely to actively participate in food safety social co-governance only when they have at least one of the following three characteristics: (1) higher than average income in their city of residence; (2) a bachelor's degree or higher education; or (3) good health. Therefore, motivating citizens to participate in co-governance is a long-term process in China. The fundamental strategy is to increase the income of citizens, especially among low-income groups, promote education to improve the food safety literacy of the public, and improve sanitation and public health.

Effects of Governmental Intervention on Foodborne Disease Events: Evidence from China.

Foodborne disease events (FDEs) endanger residents' health around the world, including China. Most countries have formulated food safety regulation policies, but the effects of governmental intervention (GI) on FDEs are still unclear. So, this paper purposes to explore the effects of GI on FDEs by using Chinese provincial panel data from 2011 to 2019. The results show that: (i) GI has a significant negative impact on FDEs. Ceteris paribus, FDEs decreased by 1.3% when government expenditure on FDEs increased by 1%. (ii) By strengthening food safety standards and guiding enterprises to offer safer food, government can further improve FDEs. (iii) However, GI has a strong negative externality. Although GI alleviates FDEs in local areas, it aggravates FDEs in other areas. (iv) Compared with the eastern and coastal areas, the effects of GI on FDEs in the central, western, and inland areas are more significant. GI is conducive to ensuring Chinese health and equity. Policymakers should pay attention to two tasks in food safety regulation. Firstly, they should continue to strengthen GI in food safety issues, enhance food safety certification, and strive to ensure food safety. Secondly, they should reinforce the co-governance of regional food safety issues and reduce the negative externality of GI.

Enterprise Food Fraud in China: Key Factors Identification From Social Co-governance Perspective.

Food fraud not only exacerbates human public health risks but also threatens the business development of food and related industries. Therefore, how to curb food fraud effectively becomes a crucial issue for governments, industries, and consumers. Previous studies have demonstrated that enterprise food fraud is subject to joint influences of factor at various hierarchical levels within a complex system of stakeholders. To address enterprise food fraud, it is necessary to identify the key such factors and elucidate the functional mechanisms, as well as systematic analysis of the interrelationships among clusters and factors. Hence, we grounded on a social co-governance perspective and investigated the food fraud key influencing factors and their interrelationships in an emerging food market - China, by using the DEMATEL-based analytic network process (DANP). Results showed that the identified key cluster was government regulation, social governance, and detection techniques. Four other key factors were also identified, including government regulatory capability and penalty intensity, expected economic benefits, maturity of market reputation mechanism, and transparency of supply chain. Policy implications from the social co-governance perspective for China and similar economies are discussed finally.