This paper discusses a number of issues arising from the contiguous development of public and private quality standards, predominately in developed countries. The paper is an exploratory examination of the ways in which public and private food quality standards interact with each other in modern food systems. This review is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter which is a relatively new area of research. The focus of the report is on food quality standards which are defined here as including the full array of food product and process attributes required by consumers and society as well as food safety.