In the context of a growing world population using limited resources responsibly, this research is motivated by increasing pressures to the food industry, with issues on food security, safety and waste. Considering a global food supply chain environment, processing time and cost (PTC) are combined with operational risk (ORk) in a novel integrated approach for designing and optimizing monitoring systems. Studying a flagship product widely consumed in the world, the provided quantitative analysis and results are based on real-world data obtained from an international food company. Evidence is given that the designed multiobjective methodology reveals quantitative insights concerning the non-linear relationship between PTC and ORk. Indeed, we numerically show how to significantly decrease PTC with only minor increase of ORk. Moreover, critical monitoring activities were identified, allowing a step-by-step optimization of the entire monitoring system. Generalizable insights are derived for practitioners.