Informational barriers, quality assurance and the scaling up of complementary food supply chains in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This article examines how effective quality assurance mechanisms can help address three challenges facing scaling-up efforts in supply chains for complementary foods in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): sourcing, market size and consumer trust. We use supply chain analysis to evaluate how stakeholder actions and relationships influence the dynamics of complementary food markets in SSA. We argue that effective signalling of credence attributes via credible quality assurance can contribute to the sustainability of local complementary food supply chains and once established, may contribute to the long-term affordability, accessibility and availability of these foods in SSA. The article concludes by stressing that allocating resources for establishing or further implementing regional and/or state-level quality assurance mechanisms for food safety and quality requires the coordination of stakeholder actions to address food insecurity across SSA.