Identifying quality related risk factors in spices and allied products for export market

Abstract

Sri Lankan spices sector is one of the leading export sectors among the export products and a significant part of the country’s economy. But Sri Lankan spices exporters face issues with quality, packaging, standard certifications, and value addition. The study focuses on trade competitiveness and trade barriers of regional trade agreements, in the export trade of spices. The purpose of this study is to identify the quality related risk factors for the exporters in spices industry and suggest the risk mitigation strategies. Potential issues were identified by conducting a background study and obtaining industry experts’ opinions. Thereafter, selected factors were analyzed through Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique that presented the relationships between ten quality standard related risk factors. The study was able to identify Inadequate laboratory services (R2), Sudden changes in quality parameters (R5), and Lack of awareness of value chain partners (R4) as the top three risk factors among the identified risks. The MICMAC analysis shows that are highly independent risk factors in the system. Also, they are the risk generators in the system according to the hierarchy. The key areas of the risk mitigation strategies are technological enhancements, research and development, and initiatives to make awareness on industry.