Interregional collaboration for food safety governance: the scheme design and performance evaluation with cases in China

The spatial spillover of food safety risks and the regional mobility of food enterprises make territorial governance inefficient, which calls for interregional collaboration to enhance food safety in the context of territorial governance. However, due to the lack of a collaborative food safety governance scheme, there has been no substantial progress in interregional collaboration for food safety governance in China. Therefore, this paper refines the three key elements of collaboration from the perspective of supply chain, economy and geography and puts forward the optimal zoning scheme of interregional collaboration for food safety governance. By analysing the evolution trend of interregional collaboration, we found China has already produced the germination of interregional collaboration in terms of food safety issues, though it has been slow and volatile. To promote the process of interregional collaboration, this paper also analyses the determinants of the coordinated regulatory performance of food safety. The results show that collaborative actions within regions can facilitate coordinated regulatory practice. The interregional difference in regulatory intensity and consumption patterns hinder the interregional collaboration for food safety governance, while the interregional difference in industrial structure inversely promotes the coordinated regulatory performance. These findings lend support to effective promotion of interregional collaboration.