Worldwide trends in the scientific production of literature on traceability in food safety: A bibliometric analysis

Food traceability is an important aspect of the food safety supply chain to ensure efficient tracking of produce to check contamination and other foodborne diseases. The health and nutrition response after the Covid-19 pandemic requires a robust and diverse food supply chain in which traceability could play a major role. Since it is an emerging field of study with growing interest in the technological front, it is important to study the scientific trend and research activities. This study provides an important insight into the food safety value chain response towards modern food safety management systems through scientometric analysis. Scopus database was used to retrieve the documents from the year 1992–2021. The research papers and conference papers were only chosen. Vosviewer software was used to carry out the scientometric analysis. The distribution and growth trend of documents, country-level distribution of publications, the relationship between authors and co-authors, etc., were analyzed. The intensity of publications from different countries and the collaborations was analyzed using bibliometrix R-package. The year-wise research publication showed a rapid increase in the researchers conducted on traceability systems to enhance food safety from 2014 onwards, mainly from the USA and China. However, the research appeared to be in the developing phase compared to other technology implementation and automation advancements.