Selection and Use of Acceptance Criteria

Abstract

The global trade in food is extensive as demonstrated by statistics on food trade. For example, the value of world trade flow between countries in agricultural produce alone for 2008 ranged between 1060 billion and 1105 billion US dollars (FAO 2011). In 2014, the USA imported approximately 61 million metric tons of food products across 13 categories (excluding live animal imports) (ERS 2015). In addition to these country-to-country food product flows, food is traded within each country between food businesses in large volumes that are difficult to estimate. All these food products should be safe and of suitable quality. However, the safety of a product is not verifiable by sight and smell, and therefore food businesses and consumers must rely on their supplier to deliver raw materials of acceptable safety and quality or else rely on the effectiveness of government food controls.