While it is important to express one's own interests, it is also very important to understand what other people think about the same subject. This section tries to give some hints at what other actors in the food supply chain might thinkabout the topics that you care about. Of course you can always change the viewpoint, but this is a good place to introduce yourself to other people's thinking.
What other people think
Operational |
The operators are interested that the consumer will buy and continue to buy their products. Branding and reliability are important mechanisms to build trust between the consumer and the operator. Traceability can be used as a tool to both mechanisms and provides an instrument for increased communication of quality and reliability. Operators might not always be willing to share all operational information with consumers, and they might have concerns that the consumers are not able to correctly interpret all information. Go to viewpoint. |
Supply chain |
The supply chain most important issue is to provide food to the consumers in a timely and reliable manner to ensure availability of products based on consumer demand. However, actors within the supply chain may not wish to give customers all information about internal practices. Go to viewpoint. |
Quality Assurance |
The main role of quality assurance actors are to both implement and document that the promised and required quality is in place when the consumer buys the product. Actors working with quality assurance will hope that traceability enables them to provide the consumer with more information about the quality of the food they are eating. Go to viewpoint. |
Public Authority |
The public authorities represent the consumer and provide laws, regulations, monitoring and control to ensure safe food for the consumer. The public authorities would expect the consumer look to them for advice about the food they have purchased, and to follow advices related to food management both in regular consumption and when any food scares are identified. Go to viewpoint. |
ICT |
ICT may provide tools and systems that can help the consumer to buy safe food. The consumer may also a be consumer of information which will be the responsibility of ICT to provide in a suitable manner. ICT will have to make information handling system which are suitable for consumer use, in that regard the consumer can play a role in providing input when building the front ends of traceability systems. Go to viewpoint. |