HACCP AND ISO FRAMEWORKS FOR ENHANCING BIOSECURITY IN GLOBAL FOOD DISTRIBUTION CHAINS

Abstract

This quantitative study investigated how HACCP and ISO 22000–aligned food safety management systems enhanced biosecurity performance across global food distribution chains. The analysis used a multi-country, multi-node dataset comprising 120 firms, 286 facilities, 412 international routes, 1,034 suppliers, and 6,480 shipments. Firms were distributed across HACCP-only (30.0%), ISO-only (25.8%), integrated HACCP–ISO (29.2%), and low-maturity baseline chains (15.0%). High-risk commodities represented 58.5% of shipments, and cold-chain dependency averaged 0.64, indicating extensive exposure to temperature-sensitive biosecurity risks. Preventive capability was operationalized through HACCP maturity, ISO maturity, and integration depth indices, all of which demonstrated strong reliability (α = 0.88–0.91) and coherent factor structure. Descriptively, integrated chains showed the strongest preventive profiles (HACCP maturity M = 4.12; ISO maturity M = 4.05; integration depth M = 4.21) and the most favorable outcomes, including microbial compliance of 94.3% and only 1.8 CCP deviations per 100 shipments, compared with 86.1% compliance and 5.7 deviations in baseline chains. Multilevel regressions indicated that HACCP maturity predicted higher microbial compliance (β = 0.24, p < .001) and fewer CCP deviations (β = −0.31, p < .001), while ISO maturity independently improved compliance (β = 0.19, p < .001) and reduced recalls or border rejections (β = −0.23, p < .001). Integration depth added further explanatory power across all outcomes, especially CCP deviations (β = −0.18, p < .001) and supplier nonconformity dispersion (β = −0.21, p < .001). Final models explained substantially more variance than baseline risk controls alone (R² rising from 0.12–0.25 to 0.30–0.44). Overall, higher HACCP and ISO maturity, reinforced by deep integration, aligned with stronger, more stable chain-wide biosecurity in multinational distribution corridors.