Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted Schroeder / Food recalls have been an issue of great concern in the food industry. Stakeholder responses to food safety scares can cause significant economic losses for food firms. Assessing the overall impact that may result from a food recall requires a thorough understanding of the costs incurred by firms. However, quantifying these costs is daunting if not impossible. A direct measurement of a firm’s total costs and losses of revenue associated with a food recall requires firm-level data that is not available. The method utilized in this study overcomes this severe limitation. Using an event study, the impact of meat and poultry recalls is quantified by analyzing price reactions in financial markets, where it is expected that stock prices would reflect the overall economic impact of a recall. A unique contribution of this study is evaluating whether recall and firm specific characteristics are economic drivers of the magnitude of impact of meat and poultry recalls on stock prices. Results indicate that on average shareholders’ wealth is reduced by 1.15% within 5 days after a firm is implicated in a recall involving serious food safety hazards. However, when recalls involve less severe hazards, stock markets do not react negatively. Also, reductions in company valuations return to pre-recall levels after day 20. Firm size, firm’s experience, media information and recall size are drivers of the economic impact of meat and poultry recalls. That is, firms recalling a larger amount of product perceive greater reductions in company valuations. Additionally, recalls issued by larger firms are less likely to present negative effects on stock prices, compared to smaller firms. Moreover, firms that have recently issued a recall are less harmed by a new recall compared to those firms issuing a recall for first time. Thus, suggesting that investors take into consideration the past performance of a company when dealing with food recalls. Furthermore, media information has a negative impact on shareholder’s wealth. Findings from this study provide essential information to the meat industry. In particular, understanding the likely impact of such “black swan” events is critical for firm’s investing in food safety technologies and protocols.

Master of Science / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Kevin L. Sauer / Understanding what motivates food handlers is important for developing effective interventions to increase compliance with food safety guidelines. Traditional food safety training techniques improve knowledge, but do not always result in improved performance in the workplace. Studies have consistently demonstrated the persuasive power of stories to influence beliefs and behavior. Transportation into a narrative world is a state of immersion into a story. When individuals are transported into the world of a story, they integrate story information into their real-world beliefs and behavior. In this study, foodservice employees were shown a brief video dramatizing a foodborne illness outbreak. Behavioral intent to comply with food safety guidelines was measured both before and after watching the video. Transportation into the story and story-specific beliefs were measured as well. Study results confirmed previous findings involving narrative transportation. Participants who were highly transported into the story of Glenda’s Horrible Day reported stronger food safety behavioral intent, specifically in areas highlighted by the story, after viewing the video. Highly transported participants also reported stronger agreement with food safety messages after viewing the video. For participants who experienced low transportation into the story, there were no significant increases in behavioral intent or story-specific beliefs after viewing the video. Highly transported participants were those who (a) were familiar with the story topic, (b) were mentally engaged with the story, (c) responded emotionally to the story, and (d) identified with and felt empathy for the story characters.

Master of Science / Food Science Institute, Diagnostic Medicine Pathobiology / Justin J. Kastner / The Department of Homeland Security recognizes the Agriculture and Food Sector as a Critical Infrastructure and Key Resource—critical to the health and wealth of the United States. When food safety (i.e., unintentional) or food defense (i.e., intentional) issues arise, those in the Agriculture and Food Sector must quickly and efficiently make decisions to ensure the safety of consumers. Decision-making is an essential element in critical infrastructure protection and response. Naturalistic decision-making (NDM) explores how people make decisions in real- world settings. Eight factors characterize the task and setting in naturalistic environments and include the following: ill-structured problems; uncertain, dynamic environments; shifting, ill-defined, or competing goals; action/feedback loops; time constraints; outcome with high stakes; multiple players; and organizational goals and norms. This thesis explores whether or not food safety and food defense educational programs incorporate methods that help professionals make good decisions. To that end, this thesis first examines the decision-making environment in responding to incidents involving food safety and food defense. Four cases involving food safety and food defense reveal the presence of all eight factors. As these factors complicate the decision-making process, this thesis then evaluates whether or not prevailing educational programs and tools aimed at preparing for food safety and food defense issues (i.e., HACCP and CARVER plus Shock) directly address the eight factors characterizing NDM settings. This is explored by “following” a hypothetical student in a food safety and food defense course. The information presented to the student was analyzed and this analysis indicates that the eight factors characterizing NDM settings were addressed albeit to varying degrees. HACCP addresses action/feedback loops, time constraints, outcome with high stakes, and multiple players. CARVER plus Shock addresses action/feedback loops, outcome with high stakes, and multiple players. While HACCP somewhat addresses ill-structured problems and organizational goals and norms, it fails to address uncertain, dynamic environments and shifting, ill-defined, or competing goals. CARVER plus Shock somewhat addresses ill-structured problems; uncertain, dynamic environments; shifting, ill-defined, or competing goals; time constraints; and organizational goals and norms. In light of this, new approaches to training are needed to fully incorporate all eight factors.

Master of Science / Food Science Institute,Human Nutrition / Valentina M. Remig / Foodborne illness is a serious health problem in the United States, and especially in the mature adult population. This research examined food safety knowledge of mature Kansans(aged 55 years and older) in three important constructs (handwashing, food handling, and food preparation), their knowledge of foodborne illness symptoms, and their food safety concerns while eating away from home. One-hundred and forty participants completed a self-administered questionnaire containing ten food safety knowledge questions representing sixty answer options. Replies to those questions were compared by age, gender, geographic location,and educational attainment. Results indicated that geographic location was statistically significantly related to food safety knowledge; however, age, gender, and education had little to moderate association. Additional findings revealed food safety knowledge was not associated with participants’ level of food safety concern while eating away from home. In conclusion, the findings revealed that mature Kansans possessed general food safety knowledge; however, some responses indicated mature adults did not fully understand certain food safety protocols. Areas identified as needing further attention included appropriate hand drying and surface cleaning, safe food and refrigerator temperatures, proper thawing practices, as well as safe leftover and melon preparation.

Master of Science / Food Science Institute - Animal Science & Industry / Fadi M. Aramouni / Determining the optimum cooking instructions for microwavable not-ready-to-eat foods requires an understanding of the factors that affect heating of foods in microwaves. Factors are often studied without consideration of interactions. Consumer-driven factors appear to be the least-studied. Microwave appliance, heat time, flip step, and plate material were studied to determine their effect on final temperature of a frozen hand-held calzone sandwich after heating. Initial studies to ensure wattage stability during testing and a study to narrow down the plates to be tested were also executed. In the central experiment, a calzone was heated on a microwavable plate for one minute, then flipped or not flipped and heated again for the remaining time in each of four microwave ovens. The microwave ovens differed in age and manufacturer, but were of similar stated wattage. Probes were attached to a data logger and temperatures were recorded every 5 seconds for 2 minutes post-heating to attain the average maximum temperature and lowest maximum temperature for each run. The data was evaluated by analysis of variance and significant differences were compared using Tukey means. All factors had significant effects on average maximum temperature and lowest maximum temperature with the exception of the flip step (p< .05). Plate type was the most critical factor. Calzones heated on paper plates were significantly hotter than those on stoneware plates (p<.05). Significant differences were also observed among microwaves and heat times (p<.05). An interaction between microwave and plate type indicated the effect of plate type was not consistent across all microwaves (p<.05). Although flip step, as tested, was not a significant factor, a follow-up experiment to de-couple the effect of the physical flipping of the calzone and the stopping of the microwave during the heating process indicated that the stopping of the microwave was more critical to heating than the actual flip step. A follow-up study of plate type, microwave and heat time in higher-wattage microwaves showed that microwave appliance and heat time again had significant effects on temperature (p<.05), however; plate type was not a significant factor in the higher-wattage microwaves. The effect of plate type was dependent on the exact microwave used. Various plate types and multiple microwaves in each wattage range should be used for development of microwavable frozen calzones because wattage alone cannot predict performance and because of the interaction between microwave and plate type.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology / Tiruvoor G. Nagaraja / Escherichia coli O157 is a major foodborne pathogen that causes enteritis in humans ranging in severity from mild to bloody diarrhea to hemolytic uremic syndrome and even death. Cattle are asymptomatic carriers and fecal shedding of the organism is the major source of contamination of food and water for human infections. Distiller’s grains (DG) are ethanol fermentation co-products that are valuable feed ingredients for use in cattle diets. Previous research suggests an association between feeding DG and an increased fecal shedding of Escherichia coli O157:H7. The objectives of the research were to evaluate fecal E. coli O157:H7 prevalence and concentration in cattle fed diets with and without DG, determine if the association was dependent on inclusion level or form (wet or dried), evaluate the association in populations of cattle at harvest, and evaluate a potential intervention strategy. Our results indicated that cattle fed DG had a higher prevalence and shed a higher concentration of E. coli O157 than cattle fed diets without DG. The relationship was not dependent on the DG form, however, it was affected by the inclusion level of DG in the diet. Cattle that were fed 40% DG had a higher E. coli O157:H7 prevalence than cattle fed control or 20% DG diets and cattle fed 20% DG had a prevalence that was not statistically different from control cattle. The same response was observed in a subpopulation of cattle, termed super-shedders, which shed E. coli O157:H7 at higher concentrations than the general population. At harvest, we did not find differences in E. coli O157:H7 or super-shedder prevalence between cattle fed diets with or without DG, however, study design limitations affected the power of the study. Finally, previous work had shown that cattle fed dry-rolled grains had a decreased prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 when compared to cattle fed steam-flaked grains. We evaluated the effect of feeding DG and dry-rolled corn (DRC), alone or in combination, and observed no difference in E. coli O157 prevalence between cattle fed either DG or DRC diets. In conclusion, DG supplementation increased the prevalence and concentration of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle.

The study aimed to investigate the food safety practices of HACCP and ISO2200 in food establishments in Tanzania, focused on knowledge (awareness) and management practices of food safety systems. The research randomly surveyed 200 food establishments from three regions in the country; only 113 managers completed the survey. Research conducted face-to-face by questioning knowledge (employees and managers), management practices (ISO 22000, HACCP and prerequisites programs, GMP and SSOP), and demographic information. Employees indicated to have more knowledge on the use of GMP (64.3 %) than HACCP (22.9%) and ISO22000 (15.4%) and training of employees was GMP (73.9 %), ISO22000 (19.2 %) and HACCP (27.1%). This knowledge was also measured by frequency of training results, which indicated inadequacy of twice per year almost 31.4 % for manager, and every 3 months (29.1%) employees. Management practices of food safety systems indicated HACCP practices were inadequately done by only 26.6 % of food establishments by validating quality assurance and monitoring systems. This also included the management pratices of barriers and benefits of food safety systems (ISO 22000 and HACCP). Barriers indicated poor confidence in suppliers to provide appropriate raw material (25.7 %), lack of government support (17.3 %) and the least 4% volume of paperwork. While, benefits indicated 68.6 % benefits as the highest with the lowest (22.7%) increase in product price. The improperbarrier implemenatation resulted into inadequate control of hazards under the HACCP program, only 40 % of the food establishments asserted all food in storage was protected from contamination. Prerequisite programs in food establishments were fairly managed, over 80 % had well-designed draining systems within their food establishments.The least (35.5%) had written sanitation standard operation procedure for cleaning and disinfectants. It is suggested that through job training, class training on food safety, and availability of resources, knowledge as well as management practices could be improved within food establishments. Further studies should focus on customer awareness, food vendors as well as single groups within the food industries.

Thesis (MPhilAgric)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Not only have non-trade barriers been applied in Europe and the US to agricultural products from developing countries, but protective policy is also likely to continue. Owing to the omission of fish from the discussions in the final round of agreement at Uruguay, where tariffs were significantly reduced for other agricultural products, the fish industry has not had any non tarriff barier relief in recent years. The failure of the November 1999 World Trade Organisation Meeting at Seattle to reach any agreement, has again shattered hopes of international relief for fishery products. The main assumption underlying the study was that the production of fish in Tanzania could improve significantly if the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) principles were applied rigorously. It was believed that neither the prerequisite programmes, nor HACCP principles were probably applied as stringently as international standards require. The aim of the study was to review the literature on HACCP, programmes that are prerequisite for HACCP and factors that_ determine competitiveness in business and to examine the Tanzanian Nile perch industry against this background. The overall goal was to determine how the industry could become more internationally competitive. This was achieved by comparing the socio-economic reality of Tanzania with factors that are considered in the literature to affect competitiveness in general and in the fish industry specifically. To achieve the first of these aims, Tanzania's socioeconomic position as a developing country was examined. To achieve the latter, the commitment of fish processing factories to the application of HACCP principles and their compliance with prerequisite programmes were evaluated in a field study. The literature study confirms that HACCP has received international recognition in the fish industry as a factor to prevent hazards and gain competitiveness in the global fish market. However, conditions in Tanzania were shown to be insufficient to support the fisheries sector in attempting to gain such a competitive advantage. Although, Tanzania has the comparative advantage of a fishery resource base, a favourable trade policy and foreign technology and management, the macro-factors that include the infrastructure, human resource capital, foreign policy environment and the supporting industries are not supportive. For the time being, therefore, improvement can only come from the government and from the industry itself. There are several factors to which the government needs to pay attention in order to support this industry - and others - in achieving international success. These include the provision of infrastructure and facilities, the improvement of the transportation network, technological capabilities, human resource capital and the provision of safe water and electric power. However, the fish industry cannot rely on the government alone. The improvement of their product is also dependent on their own efforts. According to the findings of this study, the industry needs to comply with the basic sanitation factors and provide the necessary training to the employees and fish suppliers. Having examined the situation more closely, the assumption is proved to be correct. The fish industry in Tanzania does indeed appear to have the potential to become internationally competitive. Such success, however, will be heavily dependent on cooperation between the government and the industry / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Handelsbeperkinge op landbouproduckte vanaf ontwinkkelende in Europa en die Verenigde State toegepas. Daarbenewens sal beskermende beleidsriglyne waarskynlik in stand gehou word. Bespreking van sake met betrekking to vissery is nie by die finale rondte van ooreenstemming te Uruquay, waar tariewe vir ander landbouproduckte betekenisvol verlaag is, ingesluit nie, en daardeur is daar gedurende die laaste aantal jare geen belastingverligting vir die visindustrie gebied nie. By die World Trase Organisation se vergadering om internasionale verligting vir visproducte te verkry, weereens beskaam. Die hoofveronderstelling wat hierdie studie ondersteun, is dat visproduksie III Tanzanie betekenisvol verbeter kan word indien die can HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) streng toegepas word. Dit is veronderstel dat nóg die voorvereiste programme, nóg die HACCP-beginsels wat ten opsigte van internasionale standaarde vereis word, streng volgens voorskriftoegepas word. Die doel van die studie was om 'n oorsig van die literatuur oor HACCP, programme wat as HACCP-voorvereistes geld en faktore wat mededingendheid in die besigheidswereld bepaal, te verkry en om die Tanzaniese Nyl-baarsbedryf teen hierdie agterground te ondersoek. Die oorkoepelende doel was om vas te stel hoe die bedryf internasionaal meer mededingend kan word. Dit is gedoen deur middel van vergelyking tussen die sosio-ekonomiese werklikheid van Tanzanië en die faktore wat mededingendheid in die algemeen, volgens die literatuur, en die visbedryf in besonder, affekteer. Om die eeste van hiedie doelstellings te bereik, is die sosio-ekonomies posisie van Tanzanie as 'n ontwikkelende land ondersoek Om die tweede te bereik, is 'n veldstudie uitgevoer om die mate waartoe fabrieke wat vis verwerk daarop ingestel is om HACCP-beginsels toe te pas en hul gewilligheid om die programme wat as voorvereistes dien, na te kom, te evalueer. Die literatuurstudie het bevestig dat HACCP internasionale erkenning geniet as 'n faktor om risikO in de visbedryf uit te skakel en mededingendheid op die wereldmark vir vis te verwerf. Daar is egter bewys dat toetstande in Tanzanie ontoereikend is om die visserysektor in die verwewing van'n mededingende voorsprong te ondersteun. Alhoewel Tanzanië oor die relatiewe voordele van vissery as 'n hulpbron, gunstige handelsbeleid en buitelandse tegnologie en bestuur bestik, bied die makrofaktore soos infrastruktuur, kapitaal III die vorm van menslike hulpbronne, die buitelandse beleidsomgewing en die ondersteunende bedrywe nie genoeg ondersteuning nie. Vir die hede, kan ontwikkeling dus slegs deur die regering en die bedryf self bewekstelling word. Daar is verskeie faktore waaraan die regering aandag moet skenk om hierdie bedryf-en ander bedrywe-in die verkryging van internasionale sukses te ondersteun. Sulke faktore omvat die daarstelling van infrastruktuur en fasiliteite, die verbetering van die vervoernetwerk, tegnologiese vermoens en menslike hulpbronkapitaal, en voorsiening van onbesmette water en elektriese krag. Die visbedryf kan egter nie net op die regering steun nie. Die verbetering van die product is van die bedryf self afhanklik. Die bevindings van hierdie studie dui daarop dat die bedryf die basiese faktore betreffende sanitêre beginsels moet onderhoue en die vereiste opleiding aan diensnemers moet verskaf. By die nadere ondersoek van die situasie is die oorspronklike veronderstelling korrek bewys. Die visbedryf in Tanzanië beskik oor die potensiaal om internasionaal medengend te word. Sodanige sukses sal egter uiters afhanklik wees van samewerking tussen die regering en die bedryf.

published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management

The impact of domestic policy regulations and standards on trade has been at the forefront of global policy during the past decade. Every country develops their own policies and standards that differ from country to country. These differences create problems for manufacturing industries, especially in major exporting countries. This study overviews the policy context driving standards in the manufacturing industries. The study consists of three different articles that attempt to examine the role of technical regulations and standards and their relationship with trade using different econometric models In the first article, the standard factor endowment approach is employed to explain the effects of environmental regulatory policy on net exports in different manufacturing industries. The study hypothesizes that a countrys comparative advantage depends on its factor abundance. The regulatory policy increases production costs and, thus, reduces the output level of an industry. The results indicate that each industry is unique in the factors determining net exports and in many instances environmental regulations are important. In the second article, we investigate the impact of competition policy on a countrys production and export competitiveness. Since the impact of competition regulation depends upon the particular circumstances of the industry to which the policy is applied, we examine how competition policy impacts production and exports of a specific sector, in particular the agri-food processing sector. The results suggest that competition policy enhances competition by reducing entry barriers, and causes firms to produce more output with lower prices. Exports for both total and food manufacturing in the post-competition policy period are higher than exports in the pre-competition period. In the third article, we estimate regressions based on an extended gravity model to determine the possible influence of food safety standards on export flows of six Asia-Pacific countries to ten importing countries. We examine the relationship between bilateral exports and importers imposition of food safety standards. The results show that the value of exports in food and food products is negatively affected by food safety standards: the greater the aflatoxin standards, the lower its restrictiveness, and higher the bilateral export flows.