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Introduction

The food industry is a multifaceted, worldwide collective industry composed of different enterprises which together supply food products that are used by the global population. Only the individuals who thrive on the food they grow (subsistence farmers) cannot be considered within the scope of todays food industry. From the initial stage to the final stage, the food industry includes the following; regulation, education, financial services, research and development, agriculture, food processing, marketing, wholesale and food distribution, retailing and consumers. Food industries are grouped into two; perishable and non-perishable food industries. Perishable food is food that can spoil, perish or decay easily while non-perishable food is commodities that do not perish or decay rapidly. This paper will examine how economic, safety, legal and social responsibility, and how quality control systems can be utilized to achieve the company goals.

Perishable food industry

Therefore, perishable foods need special handling and refrigeration. All frozen and fresh food products can spoil easily and are subject to quick declension or deterioration when inappropriately stored. They need appropriate temperatures, air circulation, controlled humidity and special handling by ensuring the storage area is clean and sanitary. Thus, failure to sustain any of the above conditions will lead to quick spoilage and ultimate loss. In perishable food industries, most spoilage in frozen and fresh food products is as a result of fungi and bacteria, and they spread easily from the spoiled to the fresh food products.

The perishable food industry has been facing a lot of pressure regarding food safety improvement, quality management and application of effective risk management. Individual parties within the perishable food supply chain should create proper strategic and functional modifications, increase commodity quality and raise functional effectiveness and profits (Wang & Brien, 2009, par. 1). The pressure within the industry is due to quality failures which have been witnessed in different perishable food industries.

Safety responsibility

Food-tracing systems are significant for food safety and quality control. The systems assist perishable food industries to differentiate the source and degree of quality or safety-control predicaments. The more accurate the systems, the quicker a generator can recognize and correct food quality or safety predicaments. Thus, the industries have a motivation to devote in the systems since they assist in reducing the distribution and production of poor quality and unsafe commodities, which as a result reduces the probability for recalls, bad publicity and liability. In addition, the systems could assist in tracing commodity distribution and aim recall actions, hence limiting the level of destruction and liability (Rasco & Bledsoe, 2005, p. 355).

Managing perishable products pose an essential challenge within the supply chain surrounding. Green vegetables, dairy products, fruits, food stuffs and other perishable products are products of daily human consumption. The above items have a limited operational lifetime, and they go through several hands during their motion from initial stage to final stage. Food processing encompasses some of the food chain issues. Food processing refers to the techniques utilized to change raw materials in food or products that can be consumed by human being. Perishable food processing takes hygienic, slaughtered or harvested elements and utilizes them to generate vendable food commodities. There are several dissimilar methods of producing perishable food. These methods include; one off production, batch production, mass production and just-in-time production (Rasco & Bledsoe, 2005, p. 357).

When the advantages of accurate traceability for food or product quality and safety control are bigger, the larger the possibility and quality failures or cost of safety are detected. Where the possibility and cost of quality failure are great, manufacturers have large monetary bonuses in order to minimize the amount of the measure recalls mass and to follow a more accurate traceability approach. The possibilities of failures vary among perishable food industries due to concept that some products are more perishable and vulnerable to contamination or pollution than others. In addition, the cost of quality or safety breaches differs because the worth of foods and the worth of the reputation of the industries vary. For high-worth commodities, remember costs in every product are greater than for low-worth items. For industries with important reputes, the recall costs or quality breaches are greater than for industries with fewer reputations (Rasco & Bledsoe, 2005, p. 357).

If the perishable food industries could eradicate safety predicaments by use of simple measures or inexpensive examination, the marginal advantages of traceability approach for supervising safety could be small. For instance, a company can utilize a chemical on incoming product which can eliminate the risk of microorganism contamination completely. As a result, there could be less value in a system of traceability to recognize the generators of the items containing high amount of micro-organism contamination. Similarly, if quality and safety predicaments are unlikely to come up in a particular area of the supply or production chain, there is less worth in developing traceability approach for that area or stretch. Traceability system could also assist industries to determine the degree of their loss or liability in food safety failure cases and possible change liability into others within the supply chain. If an industry could produce documents to show that the identified safety failure or malfunction did not happen in its firm, then it might be in a position to protect itself from negative effects or liability (Rasco & Bledsoe, 2005, p. 358).

In spite of the significant role traceability systems play its just one component of the entire quality/safety of the perishable food industry control systems and are planned to strengthen and accomplish the other components of the quality system. Traceability systems themselves do not generate high-quality or safer commodities or measure the liability. They offer appropriate information on whether control points within the supply or production chain are functioning appropriately or not. The precision, depth and breadth of the system for quality and safety inevitably mirror the critical control points within the entire system of safety/quality. In addition, they differ consistently across firms and with time based on quality and safety inventions and technologies (Rasco & Bledsoe, 2005, p. 358).

Economic responsibility

Economic responsibilities of a firm or industry indicate the capitalization of the values of the industry. Economically, firms are supposed to capitalize the earnings of their shareholders. This is achieved through the generation of goods and services which are on high demand in the market niche. In order for a company to achieve its goals, all the economic responsibilities must be implemented effectively. A company has economic initiatives to its customers, investors and employees. The four basic economic responsibilities include; profitability, transparency, non-discrimination and sustainability (Spice Mentor, 2008, par. 1).

A company or an organization makes profit when it trades commodities or services which are more significant than the raw materials and labour force it utilized to create them. Simply, any company makes profit through adding value to a product. Therefore, adding value and making profit fulfils the goals of all the direct stakeholders of a company. In addition, the company generates commodities or services which are important to clients. Moreover, the company utilizes profits to acknowledge investors and pay its workers (Spice Mentor, 2008, par. 2).

Secondly, a company is able to achieve its goal if it serves with transparency; where it offers as much data as realistic or practical concerning its operations. Similarly, an organization permits direct stakeholders to clearly view its financial positions, practices and strategies. Therefore, transparency benefits the direct stakeholders of a company. In addition, transparency caters for the interests of investors by providing them with data which they require to assess the probable rewards and risks of investing within the organization. Moreover, transparency allows workers and clients to view the manner in which a company is run. The company could create informed decisions regarding how it uses its finances, where they use the money and where they work (Spice Mentor, 2008, par. 3).

Thirdly, a company can achieve its goals by being non-discriminatory. In an economic viewpoint, non-discrimination does not mean the deficiency of unfairness against cultural, racial or gender groups. It refers to a company implement the same monetary method to all its clients, workers and suppliers. Thus, direct stakeholders gain from the aspect of non-discrimination since the organization make decisions concerning the merit of finances instead of the preferences and deficiencies of decision makers (Spice Mentor, 2008, par. 4).

Finally, sustainability as an economic responsibility could assist a company achieves its goals if implemented appropriately. Companies make sure that sustainability of their operations by advancing or developing the procedures of the business and establishing long-lasting, secure associations with clients and suppliers. In addition, the investors, clients and workers of a company are referred to as direct stakeholders since they possess an interest in the future of the organization. Therefore, direct stakeholder gain from the business sustainability because when a company has a safe prospect, investors persist to earn dividends, and employees persist to receive pay checks while client continues to purchase the commodities and services of the company (Spice Mentor, 2008, par. 3).

Therefore, if a company lowers its food quality and safety, it will not be in a position to make more profits as compared to higher quality. In addition, when food quality is compromised, customers, investors are likely to withdraw; thus, the food company fails to sustain its production and distribution.

Social responsibility

Social responsibility in the business sector refers to the ethical theory which a firm has a role to the community at large. Social responsibilities mark the beliefs and values of the community regarding a certain company. Thus, companies should observe ethical measures when operating in order to achieve its goals. For instance, its not ethical for a perishable food company to sell stale food to its customers. In addition, since perishable foods are daily products which customers depend on, the companies should regulate their prices rather than exploiting their customers. As a result, the industries will be in a position to create more profit and attract more customers (Zain, 2008, par. 4-5).

Similarly, in order for a company to fulfil its goals, proper overtime remuneration should be given for long or unofficial hours. Thus, ethical or social roles are invalidates within the legal scheme and permit industries or companies to function with humanitarian measures and values in mind (Zain, 2008, par. 6).

Social responsibilities requires companies to view beyond documents and figures and instead to perceive at individuals and the surrounding. By adopting beliefs and values of particular moral measures as one of the success of the company, is very significant since it will help the company attract customers within its locality because of respecting their values and beliefs. Therefore, the social responsibility can form a constructive rapport between the company and individuals who are privy to its functions. These parties include; workers, investors, suppliers, surrounding community and clientele (Zain, 2008, par. 8).Therefore, if the quality of food in a perishable food industry is affected, customers within its locality will withdraw from purchasing food from the company. As a result, economic wise,

Quality control system

Controllable factors which impact on finished goods either negatively or positively are called quality control system. Quality is the characteristic which make a product what it is and the level of superiority or excellence in that product. The utilization of sound and good raw substance is of great significance in the accomplishment of the needed end commodity of consistent quality. Recognition of the main critical control areas or points is important because the procedure control associates to main processing outcomes of the raw substance (Strugnell, 1992, p. 17). Conventional quality control method is fully incapable of eradicating quality predicaments. Hence a prophylactic plan grounded on exhaustive evaluation of persisting status which makes sure that quality assurance programme goals are achieved is advocated for the perishable food companies. The Total Quality Management (TQM) and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) encompasses these needs as authorized under the International Standard Organization (ISO) 9000 series (Amankwa, 1999, par. 1).

Total quality management

This refers to a management philosophy which seeks to incorporate all organizational roles to center on fulfilling the requirements of the clients and goals of the organization. TQM authorizes the entire company starting from the workers to the managers, with the initiatives of making sure quality is achieved in their relevant services and commodities, and proper management of the procedures via the suitable procedure advancement channels. Thus, TQM aims at recognizing the root source of every problem and to preclude it from getting into the final commodity. Utilizing an elementary iterative procedure, TQM strengthens quality assurance to achieve alterations in services and commodities by way of advanced efficiency of their functional procedures. This philosophy is mostly a people-dependent procedure. Thus, in order to obtain the entire benefit of TQM, individuals in any company ought to be synergized. Therefore, companies are supposed to sustain an organization-wide plan which delegates roles or functions to every worker for the excellence of their task and the task of their group (Padhi, 2010, par. 2).

In order for an organization to implement TQM successfully, it should focus on the following elements; ethics, integrity, trust, training, teamwork, leadership, recognition and communication. These eight components of TQM can be categorized into four based on their functions; foundation (ethics, trust and integrity), building bricks (training, leadership and teamwork), binding mortar (communication) and roof (recognition).

TQM is constructed on a basis of trust, ethics and integrity. It promotes honesty, justice and openness and permits engagement by everyone. Foundation is the main key to open the crucial potential or capacity of TQM. Ethics refers to the field pertained with bad and good circumstance. It is a two-directed discipline represented by personal and organizational ethics. Ethics of the company develop an enterprise code of ethics which highlights the instructions which all workers are to follow when conducting their work. Personal ethics involves individual wrongs or rights. Secondly, integrity in TQM refers to justice, honesty, values, morals and obedience to sincerity and facts. The feature is what clients anticipate and deserve to get. Individuals perceive the opposite of unity as fraudulence or duplicity. TQM cannot perform in an environment of duplicity. Trust in a business is a by-product of ethical conduct and integrity. Without trust, the TQMs structure cannot be formed or constructed. Trust promotes full contribution of all people within an organization. It permits authorization which motivates pride possession and commitment. In addition, it permits decision making at proper position in a company, promotes personal risk-taking for uninterrupted development and assists to make sure that measurements centres on development of procedure and are not utilized to challenge individuals. Therefore, trust is significant in order to achieve clients satisfaction and it builds the cooperative surrounding or atmosphere which is important for TQM. Therefore, the social responsibility of perishable food industry is to ensure that their customers trust the company so that when they purchase the food products they believe they are safe.

Training of employees is important in order to improve quality and productivity. Managers are responsible for applying TQM within their units and train workers the TQMs philosophies. The training that employees should have include; problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, technical and business economics skills, decision making, capability to work in a team and job management performance evaluation and development. For a company to be effective, teamwork is a major component of TQM. With the utilization of groups, the enterprise will obtain better and immediate resolutions to predicaments. Moreover, teams offer more lasting developments in operations and procedures. In teamwork, individual feel more comfy while raising predicaments which might occur and can obtain assistance from other employees to get a solution and implement it. Similarly, in every company, leadership is a crucial element of TQM. In order for TQM to be effective in an organization, managers should be devoted in guiding their employees. A manager should comprehend TQM, trust in it and indicate their devotion and belief via their day-to-day practices of TQM. Thus, employees within the food industry should be trained innovative and modern methods of processing the products. In addition, they should be in a position to solve any problem which might occur during processing in order to maintain the required quality.

Consequently, TQM requires that communication to exist among all the stakeholders of an organization (customers, investors, employees and suppliers). In addition, recognition is vital for the success of any business. Workers strive to obtain individual or team recognition. Identifying and recognizing participators is the most significant work of managers. When individuals are recognized, there is enormous alteration in quality, self-esteem and productivity of the workers. Therefore, the above mentioned elements are significant in ensuring the effectiveness of TQM implementation in a company and managers play a major responsibility in establishing these components in a company (Padhi, 2010, par. 8).

Perishable food industry is an enormous world-wide business and within this industry, quality is mostly an incorporated measure of appearance, purity, colour, texture, workmanship and flavour. However, quality is becoming a significant matter because of the multiple factors such as food borne illness which are as a result of poor handling of food or poor storage. For instance, between the years 1993 to 1997, approximately 2,751 outbreak cases concerning food borne illness were reported in the United States. The main causal factors were confirmed to be chemical agents, bacteria, parasites and viruses. Therefore, this is a clear indication that quality within the food industry has been compromised and as a result several cases have been reported. However, if the industries implement the quality systems properly, they will improve quality and achieve their goals.

Proper handling of perishable food

Quality is a vital factor within the perishable food industry and must be maintained from initial to final stage. When perishable goods or commodities are transported from the producer or farmer to the consumer, it is anticipated that they need to resist the changes of delivery across reasonable distances. Decomposition of perishable commodities occurs normally unless some gambit is implemented in order to delay or preclude this procedure. To improve quality, perishable products can be frozen, placed in ambient, chilled or stored under controlled atmosphere. In addition, products should not be stock-piled but ought to be generated on demand. Therefore, for quality to be achieved frequent inspection should be made in order to sort and eradicate any decayed products or part of the commodity. This will minimize losses which are encountered by the industry and instead improve its profit. Secondly, shipments should be separated and marked in order to make apparent their relative ages. Thus, the oldest products will be sued first in order to minimize spoilage and increase sales (Lupien, 1993, pp. 108-110).

Perishable products should be frozen at temperatures which are lower than -12R⁰C, a level where important decomposition cannot occur. When food temperature increases within the carriage above -12 degree Celsius, the rate of decomposition is greater. When the temperatures are about -10 degree Celsius, decomposition can occur with ultimate noticeable consequences.

Similarly, during transportation, perishable food is chilled. The ventilation of vegetables and fruits produce heat, utilize oxygen and forms water vapor and carbon dioxide, and ethylene gas might be generated which quickens ripening. Therefore, chilling decelerates these procedures. The purpose of chilling perishable foods is to minimize the temperature of the food and sustain it at an appropriate level where it cannot cause damage to the food.

Carriage where the atmosphere is regulated is utilized with respiring fruits like bananas, where the gas composition and temperature in contact with the commodity should be controlled appropriately in order to regulate ripening from occurring in uncontrollable manner.

Quality of perishable products

Therefore, if perishable foods are handled appropriately within the entire food chain, quality will be maintained. Appropriate quality is judged through texture, anticipated appearance, freshness and smell. Because these characteristics alter with time, the preservation of excellent quality relies on decelerating this natural advancement appropriately. The range of alterations differs among commodities. Therefore, within the perishable food industry, TQM is required throughout the stages including transportation chain and constructive quality control system should be implemented.

Effective application of TQM system needs efficient training of the important personnel within the perishable food and carrier organizations and of quality measures enforcement personnel. Moreover, to make sure that foods are obtained from the producer while safe and sound and move to the carrier while in the same situation, there is need for surveyors to conduct independent evaluation. This evaluation will confirm the quantity, the situation and packaging integrity, availability of observable defects, temperature situations at the time of loading the product and temperatures of the carriage itself (Spriegel, 1993, p. 175).

Six Sigma

Six Sigma refers to an enterprise management strategy which seeks to advance the quality of procedure results by recognizing and eliminating the causes of problems or defects, and reducing variability in business and manufacturing processes. It utilizes a group of quality management techniques such as statistical techniques and builds a particular infrastructure of individual within a company who are proficient in these techniques. Every project of Six Sigma that is conducted within a company adopts a specific series of measures and has quantified objectives. These targets or objectives could be financial or whatever is significant to the client of that procedure. The initial step in computing sigma or in comprehending its importance is to understand what the clients anticipate. In Six Sigmas language, client needs and anticipations are referred to as critical to quality (CTQs).

For instance, an industry which is dealing with pizza, a perishable commodity, should know that the major need of the customers is timely delivery. Other needs include; temperature of the product, tastiness and accuracy of delivering the order among others. Sigma system is used to observe how well or poorly a procedure functions and to offer everyone a general method to show that measure. When a company breaches important needs of the customers, it is producing or giving room for cost, defects and complaints.

Six Sigma has six themes which are as follows; genuine center on the clients, fact-and-data driven management, procedures are found where the actions are found, proactive management and boundary-less collaboration. In Six Sigma, client focus is the major priority. Six Sigma developments or advancements are described by their effect on client satisfaction and worth. In order for an organization to move to innovative and more power level, Six Sigma adopts the idea of management by fact. Six Sigma subject starts by explaining what standards are important to measuring the performance of an organization and then collect and evaluate key variables. Then predicaments can be defined, evaluated and resolved more efficiently and permanently. Whether a company is centered in creating commodities and services, evaluating performance or advancing effectiveness and client satisfaction, Six Sigma puts the procedure as the significant vehicle of achievement. In addition, proactive management refers to creating habits from exactly what they are, explaining inspirational objectives and reexamining them regularly, setting clear priorities, centering on predicament prevention instead of threatening or firefighting, and querying why they reason of carrying out things rather than defending them blindly (Pande & Holpp, 2000, p. 7).

Similarly, Six Sigma centers on the client and develops procedures which promote higher quality services and commodities, and aggressive boundary within the market niche. Moreover, its projects might create a working surrounding which is more conducive and safer for productivity. Perishable food industry is a discipline where quality control is critical. Bearing in mind the large number of individuals consuming the food commodities, any defect can lead to critical and dangerous effects. Therefore, every food industry should implement Sic Sigma in the whole food supply chain. The following are examples of projects of Six Sigma within the food industry; minimization in distribution costs, preventing or minimizing wastage especially in perishable products, promoting consistency of food commodities transportation and productivity enhancement. Moreover, advancing delivery vehicle usage, minimization in maintenance costs, improving quality packaging, minimization in plant and machine maintenance cost and advancing obedience to schedules at collect and transportation points (Tennant, 2001, p.6).

For many years, manufacturing organizations have maintained the disputing views and competing precedencies of supply-quality and supply-chain management. For instance, within the grocery company, the need to make sure that products get to the store a soon as possible is relevant since attention is needed to ensure quality in maintained during the manufacturing procedure. Basically, the quality of manufacturing should be associated directly to supply-chain effectiveness in order that perishable products can get into the stores quickly and while they are still fresh. It has been hard for supply-quality and supply-chain management to arrive at a practical solution or comprehension because of poor communication between the individuals who are responsible for quality processes and senior management. In order for the perishable food industry to resolve these challenges they need to form quality culture which gets assistance at the lead and pervades the supply chain (Stamatis, 2004, p.1).

Similarly, in the perishable food industry, making sure that raw substance and final commodities achieve the needs and standards of the regulatory agencies could be enormously hard. In addition, industries face the challenge of the way to hold back the spiraling costs related to enormous low inventory turnover and supply chains. With larger supply chains rising from world-wide outsourcing, industries encounter or experience difficult in ensuring quality of the commodities which they get from the suppliers. Therefore, the challenge to the industries is to create a strategy where the supply-chain people will aim at the performance standards and goals in order the industry can obtain raw substances, ingredients or elements which achieve the requirements or their customers. It is significant to center on managing suppliers procedures, in order the commodities can be manufactured appropriately (Kopecky, 2008, p.1).

Therefore, in order for the perishable food industry to overcome the above challenges, they should implement Six sigma which is used to improve efficiency and effectiveness by removing defects from food processes.

Product Liability

Product liability refers to the field where suppliers, producers, retailers, distributors and manufacturers are accountable for any injuries that result from the products they deal with. The common claims related to product liability include; breach or warranty, negligence, liability, strict and several client protection claims. Most of the product liability claims are evaluated at the level of state though they differ in different states. Every form of product liability issue needs dissimilar components in order to be confirmed to present an effective claim. There are three types of product liability; marketing liability, manufacturing defect and design defect. Defects associated with manufacturing occur during processing period and involve poor workmanship and poor quality materials. Perishable food industries are continuously named within lawsuits saying because of long lasting health predicaments arising from poor diet selections formed by the plaintiff. These cases are inculcated with queries of general sense and individual initiatives. To some individuals, food consumption cases indicate the quarrelsomeness while others say that such cases illustrate a long-overdue development in societal regulation. Early product liability cases regarding perishable food companies, basically involved cases concerning; contamination of food, presence of foreign materials in food and exploding of beverage bottles or cans proceedings. Currently, lawsuits against food industry have increased and involve issues on negligence on fulfilling the requirements of the customers. Though cases associated with food consumption seem to be rising, recent examples include cases against several fast-food chains where unhealthy food is generated and as a result injuries such as obesity and any other health associated illnesses arise (White & Robert, 1996, p 51).

The potential alteration of legal measures has made some individuals to propose alterations to be made in legislation in order to stop the increased proceedings and what is perceived as an apparently minimized or declined responsibility personal initiative and of common sense. Therefore, the treat of cases within the perishable food industry has made legislature both at state and federal level to be established as a method of controlling and stopping what is perceived as frolicsome cases or lawsuits (Vargo, 2005, par. 12). For example, Topps Meat Company faced several challenges in the year 2007 because of quality failure. Approximately 21.7 million Ibs of fresh and frozen beef commodities generated between the year 2006 and 2007 by the organization were recalled in the year 2007 because they were contaminated with a bacteria referred to as E. Coli (Escherichia coli) O157:H7. During that time, this recall was the 2^nd largest in the United State documentation, after the largest of 25 million Ibs of beef produced by Hudson Foods Company in the year 1997. After examination, the food sample eventually tested positive for E. coli contamination (Reiser, 2007, par. 1).

One of the goals of the Topps Meat Compan

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