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Food Safety

Food safety is the management of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness and negative social and environmental consequences. Food can contain or grow bacteria that can cause food poisoning and transmit diseases. Food therefore requires scientific examination to ensure safety to its consumers. Food safety therefore emerges as a new scientific discipline that examines the production and processing of food to prevent negative health, environmental, and social implications. Green or organic food is often presented as an example of safe food because of the debate on the health and environmental consequences of genetically modified food. Previously, food safety was understood just as freshness and taste free from any hazardous bacteria; at this time, however, different social and environmental attributes are also part of it.

This food technology scientist is comparing the efficacy of several types of washes that may reduce microbes and contaminants on spinach and other greens.

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Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service/Peggy Greb

Evolution of Food Safety System

The hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) is one of the main tools and mechanisms for food safety. The HACCP system has a long history of development and evolution. The current global food safety system, under the auspices of the United Nations, began in 1945 with the organization of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, concluded in 1947, included provisions for countries to apply measures necessary to protect human, animal, or plant life or health. Several of its stipulations were that measures adopted by an individual country must not unjustifiably discriminate between countries in which similar conditions prevail and must not act as disguised restrictions on international trade. After that, the HACCP system took a long path of evolution until, in 1997, it reached the “Codex Document on HACCP Principles and Application.”

Although the early HACCP system (in place until 1972) was quite simple and consisted of only three principles (conducting hazard analysis, determining critical control points, and establishing monitoring procedures), modern HACCP is built on seven principles (conducting hazard analysis, determining critical control points, establishing critical limits, establishing monitoring procedures, establishing corrective actions, establishing verification procedures, and establishing recordkeeping procedures). The United States, Japan, and several European Union countries largely use modern HACCP systems to ensure food safety. They also require that their food exporters in the developing nations apply HACCP systems. The current food safety system, however, goes beyond the HACCP manuals.

Privatizing Food Safety Governance

Since time immemorial, “food” has been playing a pivotal role not only in human health and pleasure but also in economics, culture, and politics. Whereas early human societies—hunters and gatherers, for instance—were dependent on food sources within their tribal territories, nowadays most people in richer countries consume food from all over the globe. As a consequence, the physical distance between the places of production and places of consumption is growing fast, whereas the time gap between producing and consuming a food is closing rapidly. At this time, because of the globalization process, developing nations are orienting their food products to meet global market demands, and as a result, many local food production systems in developing countries are increasingly linked to global commodity chains or networks, generating a complex governing system between the local and the global.

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