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Lytton, Timothy D.; McAllister, Lesley K. --- "Oversight of private food safety auditing in the United States: A hybrid approach to auditor conflict of interest" [2017] ELECD 633; in Verbruggen, Paul; Havinga, Tetty (eds), "Hybridization of Food Governance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 78

Book Title: Hybridization of Food Governance

Editor(s): Verbruggen, Paul; Havinga, Tetty

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785361692

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Oversight of private food safety auditing in the United States: A hybrid approach to auditor conflict of interest

Author(s): Lytton, Timothy D.; McAllister, Lesley K.

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

Private food safety auditing is a large and rapidly growing global industry. Although no one has comprehensive data on the size of the industry, there are indications that it operates on a scale comparable to that of government food safety regulation. This chapter focuses on one particular problem that undermines public confidence in private food safety auditing: the conflict of interest that arises when auditors are paid by the entities that they audit. Industry insiders and outside observers believe this conflict of interest to be a significant concern that merits attention, and various institutional actors have developed oversight mechanisms to address it. Our focus is on the institutional design of oversight – organizational structures, administrative routines and professional norms. Oversight of food safety auditing exemplifies the concept of hybridization analysed in the introduction to this volume. The system of oversight we survey is characterized by the interplay of public and private actors applying a variety of regulatory instruments developed within national, international and transnational institutions. We present an inventory of regulatory instruments that identifies the actors involved, their motivations and the character of their interactions. Although much of what we describe applies globally, our examples of tort litigation and government recognition focus on particular features of US law, so we have limited the scope of our claims to food safety auditing in the United States.