Food supply chains face growing pressure to reduce waste, protect product quality, and improve sustainability performance. Yet many supply chain decisions remain reactive, even though food products are perishable, demand is volatile, and quality deterioration often begins before problems become visible. This article proposes that food systems require a more integrated predictive orientation rather than isolated technological improvements. The central problem is that demand forecasting, waste analytics, cold-chain monitoring, and sustainability assessment are often developed as separate capabilities. When these tools remain disconnected, prediction does not necessarily translate into coordinated action or measurable environmental improvement. The absence of an integrated model limits the ability of food supply chains to anticipate waste, preserve quality, and learn from sustainability outcomes. The objective of this article is to propose a conceptual model of Predictive Food Systems. The model connects demand forecasting, waste reduction and inventory intelligence, cold-chain intelligence, and sustainability performance within a closed-loop architecture. It argues that predictive value emerges when data from each component continuously inform decisions across the whole system. The article is based on a conceptual synthesis of 26 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2017 and 2025. These studies cover food logistics, artificial intelligence, demand forecasting, dynamic inventory management, cold-chain monitoring, food waste accounting, and sustainability assessment. The article does not report new empirical data but uses existing evidence to construct an original systems-oriented framework. The proposed model specifies how demand prediction can reduce overproduction, how inventory intelligence can redirect or discount perishable stock, how cold-chain intelligence can preserve shelf-life, and how sustainability metrics can feed back into predictive systems. Three tables organise the model’s forecasting approaches, cold-chain technologies, and integrated components. The article concludes that predictive food systems can become a practical pathway for reducing waste, improving quality, and advancing sustainability performance.
Food recalls remain essential instruments for protecting public health when unsafe, contaminated, mislabelled, or otherwise non-compliant products enter food supply chains. Yet many recall systems still operate primarily as downstream corrective mechanisms after hazards have already moved through production, distribution, retail, food service, or household channels. This reactive orientation can delay containment, increase exposure, and weaken public confidence in food safety governance. Conventional recall management is increasingly challenged by globalised sourcing, rapid distribution, e-commerce, multi-ingredient products, outsourced processing, fragmented traceability records, and uneven information sharing among actors. Weak risk signals may appear in laboratory data, consumer complaints, inspection findings, supplier records, online reports, or public health surveillance before they are recognised as recall-relevant evidence. When these signals remain disconnected, recall decisions may occur only after risk propagation has already widened. This article proposes a conceptual model for intelligent food recall systems that integrates early detection, risk signal fusion, network propagation mapping, coordinated response, accountability, and communication feedback. The model reframes recall management as a system intelligence problem rather than a narrow compliance, logistics, or product-removal task. It explains how anticipatory analytics and network-aware decision support can strengthen recall scope definition, actor alignment, and public communication. The contribution of the article is a structured conceptual framework for designing recall systems that are more anticipatory, traceable, coordinated, accountable, and adaptive. The model does not report new empirical data; rather, it synthesises food safety, artificial intelligence, supply-chain traceability, risk communication, and crisis-response perspectives into an integrated recall intelligence architecture. It offers a foundation for future empirical testing, digital system design, regulatory innovation, and food-industry implementation.