The Outsourcing Companies

The other day I came across an article from Food Safety Magazine. The article was all about tips for companies that are trying to outsource food production to cut costs. It addressed many concerns companies might have about their finances and what the risks and benefits to outsourcing are. It seemed to me that if I were one of these companies this information would be extremely helpful. One thing did bother me though, what about the consumers? The focus was completely based around the risks and benefits in terms of costs for the company, but it didn't touch on what happens with the costs for consumers, do they get lower, higher, do they fluctuate at all? What about now, the quality of the food? The article touched on the costs of having to keep up laboratory standards and safety and how it can be a risk because often times it will cost more to do this over seas than it would at home. This made me wonder, there are so many companies that have lab production overseas, not just human services, so do they all keep up with the standards that they are supposed to keep up with? Is there tight regulation of this? How many companies cheat the system? Does this make the food that we eat from these companies less safe? Are the workers in those factories and labs safe? There are so many of these questions that I'm left with that I feel are completely unanswered. This article may have been intended to make both company owners and consumers feel better about the outsourcing of food production but I'm not so sure that's the case for me. Read it and see for yourselves:

http://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/magazine-archive1/december-2012january-2013/ensuring-success-of-food-company-outsourcing/