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SEARCA Research Desk
AFNR Knowledge Platform
Published
19/08/2026
s Southeast Asia’s food system changes, food safety will depend not on standards alone but on connected, risk
based systems that can prevent, detect, trace, and respond to hazards while remaining workable for smaller food system actors.
Southeast Asia’s food system is undergoing changes in production, processing, distribution, retail, and consumption, including the growing use of digital channels and continued regional food trade. These changes may affect where food safety hazards can arise, how they may move through the food system, and how readily affected products can be traced (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
WHO’s 2026 estimates of 42 major foodborne hazards provide updated global, regional, and national evidence on illnesses, deaths, and disease burden for 2000–2021, underscoring the continuing importance of effective food safety systems (WHO 2026).
Drawing primarily on a 2024 ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Research and Development Platform policy brief and its accompanying trend report, this brief examines six shifts that may influence food safety risk pathways in the region (Resilience Development Initiative and Diana 2024). Its central argument is that Southeast Asia needs connected, risk-based food control systems—not simply more standards—to prevent and control hazards, support early detection, facilitate traceability, and enable coordinated response across sectors and borders. Requirements must also reflect the operating conditions of smaller food system actors without weakening food safety protection (ASEAN 2024, art. 5(2)(f)).
The brief asks a central question: How can Southeast Asia adapt food safety systems to changing production, processing, distribution, retail, consumption, trade, and climate while maintaining effective and proportionate protection for actors of different scales?
Food safety means assuring that food will not harm consumers when prepared or eaten as intended (ASEAN 2024, art. 2(d)). It is distinct from food quality, food security, nutrition, sustainability, and authenticity. Nutritious or sustainably produced food may still be unsafe, while poor quality or false labelling does not necessarily create a health risk.
Article 3(2) of the ASEAN Food Safety Regulatory Framework (AFSRF) Agreement excludes food quality, organic food, animal welfare, sustainability, food security, environmental protection, and climate change from its scope unless they render food injurious to health or unfit for consumption. Nutrition is related to, but conceptually distinct from, food safety. Authenticity becomes a food safety concern when adulteration, fraud, or deception threatens food safety (ASEAN 2024, arts. 3(2), 4(3)).
These distinctions make it possible to identify where food system change may affect food safety risk pathways without treating every agrifood concern as a safety problem. Across production, processing, distribution, retail, consumption, trade, and climate, six shifts are particularly important.
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Where animals, crops, or food production become more concentrated, a failure in biosecurity, sanitation, feed or water quality, or input management may have consequences across a larger number of products or producers. This describes a potential risk pathway that may warrant stronger controls as systems expand; it does not establish that intensive or concentrated production is inherently unsafe or that production concentration has increased illness regionally.
A study of meat sold in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Dong Thap in Vietnam detected antimicrobial residues; only the Ho Chi Minh City samples were tested for non-typhoidal Salmonella, and these yielded resistant isolates (Nhung et al. 2018). These findings document detected hazards in sampled meat products, but do not provide a national prevalence estimate for Vietnam or a regional estimate, nor do they demonstrate that a particular production system caused the contamination. Prevention requires biosecurity, responsible antimicrobial and pesticide use, clean water and feed, records, surveillance, and affordable extension and testing for smaller producers (WHO 2020; WHO 2022; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
Are expanding systems being matched by prevention, responsible input use, and risk-based surveillance?
2
The Rice Crop Manager Advisory Service (RCMAS) translates site-specific nutrient-management science into field-level recommendations. These are delivered through digital channels, text messages, and one-page printed materials. More than 3.5 million recommendations had been issued in the Philippines by 2025, and the service has been under Philippine government ownership since 2021 (Castillo, Jardinero, and Saito 2025).
Castillo, Jardinero, and Saito (2025) report that Philippine farmers using Rice Crop Manager achieved average yield gains of 0.3–0.4 tons per hectare and additional income of USD 110–154 per hectare. These figures draw on published and unpublished on-farm trial evidence and may not represent outcomes across the wider user base.
Are processing requirements proportionate to risk and workable for small enterprises?
3
More handovers can create additional points at which food may be mixed, repacked, stored, or transported, and may increase the importance of maintaining accurate information across transactions. Incomplete records can impede source identification and timely withdrawal (Othman 2007; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
The AFSRF Agreement requires relevant traceability while giving special consideration to SMEs without compromising safety (ASEAN 2024, arts. 5(2)(f), 5(4)). Practical options could include one-step-back/one-step-forward records, common lot identifiers, producer group systems, and shared paper-based or digital services.
Can traceability enable timely withdrawals without excluding smallholders, informal intermediaries, and SMEs?
4
The growing use of e-commerce and on-demand delivery introduces additional points at which food safety controls may need to operate. Consumers may have less opportunity to assess sellers, hygiene, product condition, labels, and expiry information before purchase. Delivery and storage conditions may also affect food safety between preparation and consumption (WHO 2020; WHO 2022; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
The regional report identifies a collaboration in Vietnam with Grab to promote food safety and train SMEs, illustrating one possible role for platforms in reaching food businesses outside conventional training channels. The report does not, however, provide evidence that the initiative changed food safety practices or outcomes (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
Consumers still have responsibilities involving safe storage, reheating, hygiene, attention to recalls, and reporting suspected incidents. These actions cannot replace vendor controls, business accountability, or official oversight. Depending on national regulatory arrangements, platforms could potentially support vendor verification, complaints, traceability, incident reporting, and the removal of unsafe products.
Do oversight, infrastructure, and platform arrangements enable safe practices across both online and offline food channels?
5
Cross-border food movement increases the importance of compatible standards, credible certification, traceability, and timely information exchange because a food safety incident may involve products moving across several countries (ASEAN 2024, arts. 1, 4-6; WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
An analysis of European Union rapid alerts examined RASFF notifications involving fraud and adulteration in exports from several ASEAN countries, frequently involving herbs and spices. The study documents notifications recorded in the RASFF system; it does not establish the prevalence of fraud or adulteration in ASEAN food markets (Owolabi and Olayinka 2021). Consistent with the scope distinction above, fraud or adulteration becomes a food safety concern where it introduces a hazard or renders food injurious to health or unfit for consumption (ASEAN 2024, arts. 3(2), 4(3)).
The ASEAN Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (ARASFF) supports the exchange of information on regional food and feed incidents. The ASEAN trend report, drawing on 2017 notification data, notes that reports were concentrated among Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia and that participation among Member States was uneven. Because more recent publicly accessible regional data are limited, the available evidence does not allow current system-wide performance to be assessed confidently (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024). ASEAN continues to identify ARASFF as a regional mechanism for national food and feed alerts and notifications, and its 2026 public calendar listed meetings of the ARASFF National Focal Points and Steering Committee. This continuing institutional activity does not, however, by itself establish current notification volumes, timeliness, participation, or system-wide performance (ASEAN 2026a; ASEAN 2026b).
Do oversight, infrastructure, and platform arrangements enable safe practices across both online and offline food channels?
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Climate change may influence the timing, location, frequency, or intensity of hazards associated with heat, rainfall, flooding, drought, and seasonal variation. Extreme weather may also disrupt refrigeration, sanitation, transport, and safe water supplies (Tirado et al. 2010; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
These effects can operate through specific pathways. Flooding, for example, may compromise water and sanitation systems and increase the risk of contamination, while higher temperatures may make maintaining safe storage and cold chain conditions more difficult. Uneven access to safely managed drinking water illustrates different underlying capacities across the region (ASEAN Secretariat 2022; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024). Climate change should therefore be treated as a potential amplifier of specific food safety hazards, not a general explanation for every food system problem. Integrated environmental and disease surveillance may help identify emerging risks and their links to changing environmental conditions (WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
Are surveillance systems connecting weather and environmental information with specific hazards and vulnerable infrastructure?
Food safety is a shared responsibility across the food chain (ASEAN 2024, arts. 5, 7–11; WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
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Establish and enforce risk-based requirements; coordinate inspection, surveillance, emergency response, risk communication, laboratory services, and investment in food control capacity (ASEAN 2024, arts. 4-6; WHO 2020; WHO 2022)
Facilitate regional information exchange, laboratory cooperation, and coordination among Member States. Under the AFSRF Agreement, the ASEAN Food Safety Coordinating Committee would oversee implementation, coordinate the development of Protocols, and report on progress once the Agreement enters into force (ASEAN 2024, arts. 7, 10-11; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024)
2
Detect and confirm hazards, support outbreak investigation and source attribution, and provide reliable evidence for risk assessment and management (WHO 2020; WHO 2022)
3
Comply with applicable food safety requirements, prevent and control hazards, maintain traceability where required by national law, so that unsafe food can be withdrawn (ASEAN 2024, arts. 5(2)(c), 5(4))
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Depending on national regulatory arrangements, may support vendor verification, consumer complaints, traceability, and incident reporting. Their specific regulatory responsibilities should be defined within national food control systems (WHO 2020; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024)
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Apply good production, hygiene, animal health, and input management practices and may help smaller producers obtain training, testing, traceability, and certification services (WHO 2020)
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Generate evidence, support risk assessment, develop practical controls, and translate requirements into guidance that producers and businesses can apply (WHO 2020; WHO 2022)
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Store and handle food safely, follow recalls and official advice, and report suspected incidents. These actions complement but do not replace government and business controls (WHO 2020)
ASEAN Food Reference Laboratories provide specialized testing expertise and technical training to national laboratories. The regional network may support specialized testing and capacity development, but its effective use can be affected by sample transport costs, differing import regulations, communication delays, uneven analytical capacity, and shortages of skilled personnel. Routine detection and outbreak investigation therefore still depend on functioning national and subnational laboratory systems (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024; WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
As of 14 August 2026, the AFSRF Agreement remained listed by ASEAN as “Not In Force” (ASEAN n.d.). The Agreement provides that it will enter into force upon the deposit of the tenth Member State’s instrument of ratification, approval, or acceptance (ASEAN 2024, art. 18). Its provisions should therefore be distinguished from measures and mechanisms already operational under existing national and ASEAN arrangements.
The Agreement calls for national measures covering food controls, traceability, emergency response, and information sharing while recognizing the circumstances of SMEs (ASEAN 2024, art. 5). Its eventual regional effect will depend not only on entry into force but also on the development of implementing Protocols, national implementation, institutional capacity, and the ability of smaller actors to comply without lowering food safety protection.
· The AFSRF Agreement should be treated as an important, signed regional framework pending entry into force, rather than as an already operational ASEAN-wide regulatory system. Member States can nevertheless use the period before entry into force to strengthen national controls, coordination, traceability, emergency response, and support for SMEs. Preparations for eventual national implementation should accommodate SMEs without weakening food safety protection (ASEAN 2024, arts. 5-6, 18; ASEAN n.d.; WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
· Traceability, recall, laboratory data, registration, and early-warning tools should work across different levels of digital capacity and business scale. Innovation can also include practical improvements in testing, sanitation, cold chain management, storage, and shared services, not only digital systems. Platform-based oversight can support vendor verification and incident reporting, but digitalization cannot substitute for laboratories, infrastructure, trained personnel, and clear responsibilities (WHO 2020; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
· Stronger evidence is needed on foodborne disease, antimicrobial resistance, safety-relevant food fraud and adulteration, food fraud, climate-sensitive risks, and new food channels. Evaluations should measure contamination, illness, recall speed, compliance, or response time and assess effects on smallholders, informal vendors, and SMEs (ASEAN 2024, art. 5(2)(f); WHO 2020; WHO 2022; WHO 2026).
· Training sessions, certifications, digital systems, laboratory networks, and notification mechanisms should be evaluated according to whether they are associated with improvements in hazard control, detection, compliance, response, or consumer protection.
· Risk-based requirements should be translated into steps that producers, vendors, and SMEs can implement. Training should be combined with water, sanitation, waste management, storage, cold chain access, and collective services that can make compliance more feasible and help lower testing and certification costs (ASEAN 2024, art. 5(2)(f); WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
In Dumaguete City, Philippines, a small purposive vendor survey found positive reported knowledge and attitudes alongside constraints involving water, waste disposal, facilities, and vending regulation (Tayco et al. 2025). Although not regionally representative, the study illustrates how knowledge and attitudes may coexist with constraints that make food safety practices more difficult to implement.
The evidence points to important changes, but several limitations affect how the regional signals should be interpreted:
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Available cases do not capture the full burden; countries with stronger laboratories and reporting may appear to have more incidents because they detect more (WHO 2020; WHO 2026). The WHO Southeast Asia Region also does not correspond exactly to ASEAN, so findings from the former should not automatically be interpreted as ASEAN-wide estimates.
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They identify detected problems or perceptions. Country-level studies may illustrate specific hazards or constraints, but their findings cannot automatically be generalized across ASEAN (Nhung et al. 2018; Owolabi and Olayinka 2021; Soon-Sinclair et al. 2024; Tayco et al. 2025).
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Standards, training, laboratory networks, and notification mechanisms matter only if they improve prevention, detection, compliance, response, or reduce exposure to food safety hazards (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
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Intensification, longer chains, e-commerce, and climate change may alter the conditions under which food safety controls operate, but available evidence often does not establish that these shifts themselves caused more contamination or illness (Tirado et al. 2010; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
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The absence of publicly reported incidents should not be interpreted as evidence of no risk, particularly where surveillance, laboratory, or reporting capacity is limited (WHO 2020; WHO 2026).
Future progress can be assessed through the following developments:
1.
Track ratification and entry into force of the AFSRF Agreement, adoption of operational Protocols, translation into national regulations, and the budgets and staffing allocated for implementation (ASEAN 2024, arts. 7, 10, 18; ASEAN n.d.).
2
More consistent participation in ARASFF and international notification systems could indicate stronger cross-border information sharing and emergency coordination (Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024; WHO 2020). Current institutional activity can also be tracked through ARASFF National Focal Points and Steering Committee mechanisms (ASEAN 2026a; ASEAN 2026b).
3
Monitor investments in testing facilities, skilled personnel, quality assurance, sample transport, and the time required to detect, confirm, and communicate hazards.
4
Assess whether countries are developing stronger links between climate and environmental information and foodborne disease, crop contamination, animal health, and cold chain data (WHO 2020; WHO 2022).
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Assess whether simplified, phased, or collective traceability systems enable smallholders, vendors, and SMEs to comply without exclusion from formal markets (ASEAN 2024, arts. 5(2)(f), 5(4)). For food e-commerce, monitor vendor verification, complaint mechanisms, traceability, safe delivery and storage, and procedures for the removal of unsafe products (WHO 2020; WHO 2022; Resilience Development Initiative Team and Diana 2024).
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Track access to clean water, sanitation, waste management, cold storage, and temperature-controlled transport in traditional markets and urban food channels (ASEAN Secretariat 2022; WHO 2020; Tayco et al. 2025). Also assess whether training, certification, digital tools, and platform partnerships remain functional after project or donor support ends.
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