Food Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Food Policy - Essay Example The 15 member states of EU are also a habitat of giant food and beverage multinational enterprises, which have enormous influence on the global food environment, considering that these firms are producing both agricultural and manufactured products. The main thrust of this paper is to investigate global food policies (e.g., causes, solutions, & objectives), as well as the macro-environment of the food sector. In addition, this paper will evaluate the current trends in the food sector and various marketing strategies and issues within the global food business. 2.0 Global Food Policy According to Pinstrup-Andersen and Cheng (2009:1), ‘Food policy is a plan of collective action intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, behavior, and perceptions to enable people to achieve certain objectives.’ At present, the world’s food system or new departure programme ultimate objective is the ‘integration of consumer protection and food safety - and a focus on issues of transparency, participation, and accountability’ (Houghton et al., 2007:15). ... coli, and many more. This event has weakened the consumer’s confidence on food businesses, as well as to the government’s capacity of directing food firms to produce and sell safe and quality food products. Thus, the new food policy gave emphasis on consumer protection and interest or made end-users the core of the reform food safety system (Bergeaud-Blackler, 2004:11). Causes. The EU consumer policy is created because of the declaration that a single market efficiency will be attained only if consumers will actively participate in market activities, as an evidence that their confidence is already reinstated. After the foodborne disease scandal, the government has decided to ‘put food safety at the top of political agenda’ (Halkier and Holm, 2006:127), and it established minimum standards for the entire food fabrication, processing, and marketing (Burnett and Oddy, 1994). The serious food incident is a big challenge to food businesses all over the world bec ause food demand, sales, and consumer confidence have declined to the extent that some companies go bankrupt. The consequences are even more complicated considering that food firms need to invest a large amount for a product checking to restore the public confidence toward ‘food supply, food science, food law and food controls’ (van der Meulen and Freriks, 2006:157). Solutions. Setting policies to form a functional food system needs careful analysis on things that are directly or indirectly involved such as the economy, food chain management, environment, and marketing issues. An integrated policy is difficult to obtain because policy makers need to examine the different macro-economic environmental issues (e.g., culture, history, economic affairs, export & import trading, etc.) of many countries