Building a Practical Framework for Successful Food Safety Risk Communication

Safe food for today’s growing global population is a universal goal and while food producers, processors, manufacturers, retailers, regulatory and consumers globally strive to keep food safe, not all food is safe all of the time.  Food safety professionals and others who are tasked with explaining why this is and when and how it affects the food chain is imperative to maintain consumer confidence and build trust and to minimize and / or prevent a food crisis from occurring. 

To achieve food safety from farm to fork, whether domestically or globally, and to reduce the frequency, impact and severity of outbreaks of foodborne illness, we have to partner.  We must cooperate up and down the entire food chain to ensure that consumers, stakeholders, regulators and policy makers have the right information on which to make informed decisions and food choices.  In addition and as warranted, we must consider the global impact of food decisions in any food risk scenario.

In the 21^st century, the food chain is, more often than not, a global chain that relies on growers and ingredients suppliers, food processors, food distributors and food retailers in many different world regions.  If we fail to cooperate effectively, to share knowledge, insight and response initiatives along the entire food supply chain, I ask you all, “How effective is a very long chain with a link missing in the middle?

Or to put it another way, you can have near perfect food science, near perfect agricultural practice and near perfect regulation but if the system doesn’t function as a whole you can still have a near perfect disaster!

In bringing together unique, individual and regionally diverse case studies, we seek to identify best practices to improve public understanding about the safety to the food supply at home and abroad.