Food safety and retailers’ collective norms: impact on supply and food chains

Nowadays, there is increasing involvement of the retail industry in the implementation of norms securing food products. When norms are the result of coordinated actions, they fall within the scope of inter-firm relationships forcing intermediate market transactions to comply with priory-defined specifications. When they are individual, these initiatives contribute to a better differentiation toward competition, and favour promotion on markets. The question here is to assess those norms’ impact on the economic organization of food chains and show how they can effectively contribute to a global improvement in food safety