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Global food fraud incidents are regularly reported and are on the rise due to the ineffectiveness of traditional food safety intervention strategies. The increase in food fraud opportunity is prevalent in the state of the COVID-19 pandemic as well. Food fraud vulnerability assessment (FFVA) is acknowledged as a critical requirement by the Global Food Safety Initiatives (GFSIs) and the World Health Organisation for an effective food fraud mitigation plan. However, there is no clear direction or ways to identify and analyse food fraud vulnerability factors based on real-data.

Combining the barrier analysis technique and the routine activity theory to review the 580 cases of food fraud recorded in the Decernis database, this paper identified new food fraud vulnerability dimensions and insights pinpointed to three categories of opportunity, motivation and countermeasures.

New dimensions of food fraud vulnerability factors are identified in this paper over the period 2000–2018. Where possible, new insights related to each food fraud vulnerability factor and dimension were identified, and literature evidence was used to confirm their contribution.

There is a gap observed in the first step of FFVA in the literature. This paper is the first study to undertake a FFVA based on evidence recorded in a global food fraud database. This paper offers critical insights into global food fraud regulations by exploring the new emerging root causes of food fraud and analysing them, supporting developing effective food fraud prevention plans (FFPPs).

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of perceived social media marketing activities on consumer-based brand equity, mainly predicated on the S-O-R model. Furthermore, brand experience is tested as a mediator of the relationship between perceived social media marketing activities and consumer-based brand equity, whereas co-creation behaviour is also examined as a moderator on the relationship between perceived social media marketing activities and brand experience.

A structured survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to social media users from a large private university in Malaysia. A total of 253 valid responses were obtained. Hypotheses were tested employing partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicated that perceived social media marketing activities have a significant positive influence on consumer-based brand equity. In addition, brand experience mediates the relationship between perceived social media marketing activities and consumer-based brand equity. Surprisingly, co-creation behaviour was found to have no moderating effect on the relationship between perceived social media marketing activities and brand experience. Furthermore, using the PROCESS macro, we found that the indirect effect of perceived social media marketing activities on consumer-based brand equity through brand experience is not moderated by co-creation behaviour.

This research further extended the current knowledge by demonstrating that the influence of perceived social media marketing activities on consumer-based brand equity is mediated by brand experience. Also, this research utilised the strength of PLS–SEM in dealing with higher-order constructs, allowing us to develop and test a parsimonious model that is useful for practitioners.