ProfessorSaskia van Ruth

Corporate integrity and supply chain integrity are important official corporate values of the majority of actors in food supply chains. Breaches of integrity lead to significant monetary losses (25-36 billion euro globally per year ) and sometimes in tragic incidents (melamine in infant formula in China ). Food fraud also erodes consumer confidence and negatively impacts the growth of particular production systems that may be more susceptible to this kind of crime than others. Prof. van Ruth’s personal research interests, in regard to food supply chain integrity, lie at the intersection of natural sciences and social sciences. For development of detection approaches the natural sciences, including food science, analytical chemistry, primary production, etc., are pivotal. However, a contaminant or a microbe is not the core of the problem. A human adversary is. Therefore, the interaction with social sciences, primarily criminology but also economics, is just as important.

Her specific research interests in the Food Supply Chain Integrity area are:

A. Comprehension of food crime mechanisms in order to prevent and disrupt food fraud: To deconstruct food fraud and determine root drivers in order to comprehend the mechanisms of food crimes in food supply chain networks in combination with their impact. This involves studies on the economic motivations, crime propensity on individual and organisational levels, perceived opportunities to commit crimes and mitigation measures as well as their multidimensionality.

B. Developments to reinforce and improve resilience food supply chains against food fraud. This includes the search for new identifiers of food products. It also involves the development synergistic technology fusion systems which focus on any type of unique product identifiers which can be followed, integrated and processed into critical information to improve transparency of supply chains of sustainable/circular food systems. Particularly sustainable food systems of interest are the organic production system, systems producing plant proteins, and agroforestry.