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Thanks to technological development, how food is produced has been improving to provide more diverse and innovative food, as is the case of novel food. Yet, technological innovation also introduces the risks and facilitates crime opportunities that threatens social security in general and food safety in particular. As a result, food crime has brought new challenges to food regulation due to its characteristics of cross-board transaction and technological complexity. Putting great endeavour to guarantee food safety, China has established a science based regulatory system to deal with novel food and reinforced criminal sanctions against food targeted crimes. The specialty of the case of China is to legally provide specific food crimes in criminal law and punitive damages in the case of civil liability. The experiences in this aspect may be interesting but also illustrative to regulate technological risk as well as food crimes at other regions or international level.

The production and sale of unsafe food, which typifies the concept of cheap capitalism, has become a global concern due to the increasing integration and interdependence of contemporary societies. Using secondary data sources, including the media, regulatory bodies, interest groups, and scholarly literature, this chapter explores unsafe food within the conceptual framework of cheap capitalism. By examining the nature and scale of unsafe food, it first argues that cheap capitalism is rampant, posing a greater risk to public health locally and internationally. Second, it argues that the state, the industry, and the processes of globalisation typically constitute the dominant factors shaping and driving cheap capitalism in the food sector. Third, it argues that unsafe food in the Canadian context can properly be understood within the global context of cheap capitalism. Finally, it explores steps being taken to address cheap capitalism in the food industry.

A joined up response is necessary to respond to the challenges of food crime. With the increasingly globalised food system, sharing of information between different regulatory and law enforcement bodies is necessary. One method of ensuring information sharing is through the construction of regulatory networks. This chapter examines different methods for constructing regulatory networks, with a particular focus on the EU. It considers both the advantages and disadvantages of networks in responding to breaches of food law, and considers four case studies; the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed; the Food Fraud Network; Co-ordinated Control Plans; and the Opson Operations. The chapter argues that, despite their weaknesses, regulatory networks are essential in dealing with modern food crimes and harms.

This chapter explores the issues of genetic technologies and the politics and power of food production and distribution. It argues that food crime must also be understood within the discourses, debates and contestations surrounding ‘knowledge’ and its application to food security, distribution and consumption. Those in positions of state and corporate power that have the means to shape the contours of global food trade, notably what is safe to eat and what is not, requires an examination of the ways in which ‘knowledge politics’ plays a crucial role in shaping public discourse and influences political debate. In doing so, this chapter extends definitions of ‘food crime’ to include a political economy analysis of food production, distribution and consumption and the ways in which ‘knowledge’ becomes imperative in a global politics of power and profit.