Review Governing China’s food quality through transparency: A review Arthur P.J. Mol * Environmental Policy group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, Wageningen, The Netherlands article info Article history: Received 11 November 2013 Received in revised form 15 February 2014 Accepted 19 February 2014 Keywords: China Food safety Information disclosure Sustainability abstract In coping with food quality problems, China relies heavily on state institutions, such as laws and regu- lations, governmental standards and certification, and inspections and enforcement. Recently, trans- parency (or information disclosure) has been introduced in China’s governance framework to cope with its growing food quality and related sustainability problems. This article investigates to what extent and how China’s transparency institutions and practices regarding food production and products play a role in governing food quality and safety. Four forms of food chain transparency are distinguished and assessed: management transparency, regulatory transparency, consumer transparency and public transparency. It is concluded that in China food chain transparency is still in its infancy with respect to governing domestic food production and product quality and safety, and that only with respect to global (export) food chains transparency and accountability put some pressure on agro-food chain actors to improve their performance with respect to food quality and sustainability. By the same token furthering transparency on food quality is desperately needed as the state’s food management and control system alone proves not capable to provide safe food that is credible and trusted by domestic consumers. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 49 1.1. China’s changing food system .................................................................................................. 50 1.2. Transparency in food systems .................................................................................................. 50 2. Transparency in agrofood value chains ................................................................................................. 51 2.1. Emergence of transparency .................................................................................................... 51 2.2. Value chain transparency typology .................................................. ........................................... 52 3. Consumer transparency in Chinese agro-food value chains ............................................................................... 52 3.1. Face-to-face transparency ...................................................................................................... 52 3.2. Transparency through abstract systems ................................................ ......................................... 53 4. Public transparency in Chinese agro-food value chains ................................................................................. 53 5. Regulatory and management transparency in Chinese agro-food value chains .............................................................. 54 5.1. Regulatory transparency ....................................................................................................... 54 5.2. Private sector management transparency ........................................................................................ 54 6. Conclusion: a shortcoming transparency infrastructure ................................................................................. 55 References ......................................................................................................................... 55 1. Introduction Over the past two decades China has been confronted with an increasing number of reported food quality incidents, related to domestic as well as to international markets. Some of the most well-known are melamine in domestic baby milk, waste oil resold as cooking oil, significant pesticides residues in wine (Yang, 2013), * Tel.: þ31 317482495. E-mail address: arthur.mol@wur.nl. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Control journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodcont http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodcont.2014.02.034 0956-7135/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Food Control 43 (2014) 49e56