Ask any food industry executive to cite his or her greatest concern, and the answer will almost always be the same: product safety. But the list doesn't stop there. Like any other business sector, food manufacturers are grappling with a number of challenges, many of them related to the age of the internet and social media.

As tainted-food scandals go, it wasn't so bad. The discovery early this year of unlabeled horse meat in European food products wasn't for the most part a safety issue. It was a violation of cultural norms, to be sure, as well as a truth-in-packaging problem. Most of all, it was a supply-chain failure.

A British supermarket chain has recalled a beef product after traces of the powerful veterinary drug phenylbutazone, which is banned from the human food chain, were found for the first time in an item that had been on sale in stores here.

An uproar in China over the safety of chicken sold at KFC "has been longer lasting and more impactful than we ever imagined," according to the chief executive of parent company Yum Brands.