Food safety performance in European union accession countries: Benchmarking the fresh produce import sector in Hungary

Countries that accede to the European Union face a complex and urgent task to adopt and implement the Acquis Communautaire on food safety. For the food industries in such countries, this implies that the European Union's standards of food production and processing, food quality and safety have to be met to ensure a high level of consumer protection and satisfaction. The authors assess the level of food safety performance in one accession country, Hungary, in one food sector (the fresh produce importing chain), and evaluate the capacity of the system to demonstrate quality assurance to the satisfaction of private customers and public regulators. The analysis of food safety performance has been undertaken through gap analysis using a novel application of a benchmarking methodology taking the United Kingdom fresh produce importing chain as the benchmark. The insights are relevant to other accession countries and to other candidate countries for European Union enlargement. [EconLit Classifications: Q130, Q180].