Safe Food: Bacteria, biotechnology, and bioterrorism

Position of the American Dietetic Association: Food and Water Safety

From the Chief Executive and <scp>IFST</scp> News

Food safety has been a critical issue from the beginning of human existence, but more recently the nature of concerns over food safety has changed. Further, in terms of both scale and impact, the modern problems of food safety are very different from the issues that confronted the past. For example, especially since the late 1990s, society has faced food safety crises and scares arising from threats as diverse as bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), dioxin contamination, melamine-tainted infant milk formula, and so forth. These phenomena show that an ever-increasing variety of contaminants such as chemical and microbial agents can potentially find their way into the food supply, while novel foods such as GM foods and cultured meat add new challenges when it comes to certifying food safety. Food safety has become a particularly complex issue in the context of the global economy because the governance of food safety is entangled with several larger trends at the global scale, including (a) trade liberalization in the 1980s; (b) the adoption of a risk analysis framework by global and national food safety administrations; and (c) the spread of food quality management regimes throughout the entire food industry, from food production to processing and retail. Furthermore, there are vast differences between developed and developing countries with respect to both food safety regulations and prominent food safety issues. These facts, combined with the borderless nature of sociotechnical food systems, contribute to a situation in which it is extremely challenging for any individual country to manage food safety issues within its jurisdiction. This observation underscores the importance of global food safety governance, a goal which is in itself difficult to achieve. Two especially significant dilemmas have emerged within the existing situation vis-à-vis global food safety governance. The first is the challenges arising from the tensions inherent in a “modern” food safety governance approach, a model that combines a science-based strategy of dealing with food safety problems, on one hand, and the ideal of participatory democracy, on the other hand, in trying to deal with food safety issues. Problems arise from the contradictions between the science-based risked management approach, focused narrowly on monitoring and mitigation of hazards, and the wide-ranging complexity of the social, political, and interpersonal factors that shape people’s real-world concerns about food safety. The second is cross-border application of risk management to food imports in the Global North and its implications for exporting countries in the Global South. Problems arise from disparities in approaches and expectations regarding food safety between the Global North and the South. These two dilemmas have one thing in common: Each inherently contains challenges arising from internal contractions, as when the goal of achieving sound and consistent solutions to food safety issues is pursued alongside the goal of building a broad consensus across varying actors whose values, norms, needs, and interests differ and who are situated in differing socioeconomic and political contexts. Drawing insights from the sociology of agriculture and food and from social studies of science, an attempt is made to unpack the societal and policy challenges of food safety governance in a globalized economy.

Food supply and food safety issues in China

Editorial and News

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presents an exceptional and unprecedented challenge for competent authoritiesa with responsibilities for national food safety control systems b to continue conducting routine functions and activities in accordance with national regulations and international recommendations. In many countries, competent authority staff are largely working from home, teleworking being the normal practice, and all face-to-face meetings cancelled or rescheduled as teleconferences. It is challenging to maintain, without interruption, routine activities such as the inspection of food business operations, certifying exports, control of imported foods, monitoring and surveillance of the safety of the food supply chain, sampling and analysis of food, managing food incidents, providing advice on food safety and food regulations for the food industry, and communicating on food safety issues with the public. Competent authorities have a critical role to play during this pandemic in working with all sectors of the food industry so that producers and processors can continue to operate effectively and keep safe food supply lines open. This guidance aims to address some key issues, namely, how to ensure the effectiveness of a reduced food safety inspection programme in mitigation of risk;and temporary measures that can be introduced to contain widespread food safety risks and reduce serious disruption to national food safety programmes.

With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050, the need for nations to secure food supplies for their populations has never been more pressing. Finding better supply chain solutions is an essential part of achieving a secure and sustainable diet for a rapidly increasing population. We are now in a position, through methods including life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting and other tools, to accurately measure and assess our use – or misuse – of natural resources, including food. The impact of new technologies and management systems can therefore improve efficiencies and find new ways to reduce waste. Global Food Security and Supply provides robust, succinct information for people who want to understand how the global food system works. The book demonstrates the specific tools available for understanding how food supply works, addresses the challenges facing a secure and safe global food supply, and helps readers to appreciate how these challenges might be overcome. This book is a concise and accessible text that focuses on recent data and findings from a range of international collaborations and studies. The author provides both a snapshot of global food supply and security today, and a projection of where these issues may lead us in the future. This book will therefore be of particular interest to food policy leaders, commercial managers in the food industry, and researchers and students seeking a better understanding of a rapidly evolving topic.

<scp>IFST</scp> vision for a <scp>UK</scp>‐wide national food strategy

Ensuring Safe Food for Infants: The Importance of an Integrated Approach to Monitor and Reduce the Risks of Biological, Chemical, and Physical Hazards

Scientific risk estimates of BSE can be the same internationally; however, socioeconomic backgrounds, such as food supply (e.g., beef import status) and dietary life, are different between East Asian countries (i.e., in this article, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and Western countries, which may account for differences in risk perception of people. Since political and social backgrounds also differ among these East Asian countries, they will also influence people's attitudes toward food safety. Psychological factors such as "dread" and the "unknown" are considered to be important in risk perception, but socioeconomic, and in some cases political, situations (e.g., attitudes of politicians and political pressures in trade) may strongly influence the perception and acceptance of various risks by citizens. With regard to the BSE issues, latter aspects may contribute a lot to risk perception, but have not been examined in depth until now. Although protection of health is the key element to food safety, sometimes business factors can overwhelm safety issues in international trade. Appropriate risk governance in food safety issues, such as BSE, can be attained not only through application of outputs of scientific assessment, but also through deliberation of various aspects, that may have strong influence on people's risk perception, and improved communication among stakeholders and also among countries.

The right to safe food is one of the most important fundamental rights of consumers. This is an issue directly related to human health and life, the maintenance and development of the race as well as the process of international development and integration. Ensuring food safety is currently a topic that has been paid attention to internationally as well as nationally. On a global scale, food safety issues are concerned and controlled by the world community through many signed international agreements and conventions on ensuring food hygiene and safety. In Vietnam, food safety is one of the most urgent issues in the context of economic development and world integration, which is concerned by the whole society. Although the Vietnamese Government has gradually improved the legal system regulating food safety, the situation of violations of the law on food safety is still quite complicated. The article analyzes, clearly indicates the need to ensure the right to food safety of consumers, and at the same time analyzes the provisions of international law and Vietnamese law on people's right to ensure food safety. From there, propose recommendations to countries to improve efficiency in ensuring food safety for consumers. KEYWORDS: Food safety, Right to use safe food, International law, Vietnamese law

The increasing demand for high-quality, safe food products, coupled with global challenges such as foodborne illnesses, antimicrobial resistance, and the complexities of food production and supply chains, necessitates the adoption of advanced technologies in the food industry. This review explores the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enhancing food safety and quality assurance systems in food regulatory bodies and industry. We examine various AI applications, including machine learning, computer vision, predictive analytics, and Natural Language Processing (NLP), which have the potential to improve food safety monitoring, contamination detection, and regulatory compliance. AI-driven automation and data analysis tools are transforming food safety practices by enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and real-time decision-making capabilities. The integration of AI with other technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), also facilitates better traceability and proactive risk management in the food supply chain. However, despite these advancements, challenges such as data privacy, industry reluctance, and the lack of standardization must be addressed for wider adoption. The paper concludes by highlighting the need for interdisciplinary collaboration, improved data standards, and continued innovation to unlock the full potential of AI in food safety and quality systems.

Strategically unlearning specific knowledge, behaviors, and practices facilitates product and process innovation, business model evolution, and new market opportunities and is essential to meet emergent supply chain and customer requirements. Indeed, addressing societal concerns such as climate change and net zero means elements of contemporary practice in food supply chains need to be unlearned to ensure new practices are adopted. However, unlearning is a risky process if crucial knowledge is lost, for example, if knowledge is situated in the supply base not the organization itself, or there is insufficient organizational food safety knowledge generation, curation, and management when new practices/processes are designed and implemented. An exploratory, critical review of management and food safety academic and gray literature is undertaken that aims to consider the cycle of unlearning, learning, and relearning in food organizations and supply chains with particular emphasis on organizational innovation, inertia, and the impact on food safety management systems and food safety performance. Findings demonstrate it is critical with food safety practices, such as duration date coding or refrigeration practices, that organizations "unlearn" in a way that does not increase organizational, food safety, or public health risk. This paper contributes to extant literature by highlighting the organizational vulnerabilities that can arise when strategically unlearning to promote sustainability in a food supply context. Mitigating such organizational, food safety, and public health risk means organizations must simultaneously drive unlearning, learning, and relearning as a dynamic integrated knowledge acquisition and management approach. The research implications are of value to academics, business managers, and wider industry.

This book focuses on food safety issues and discusses how livestock production may affect human health in general. Chapter 1 of this book describes the transformation of the food supply from a local activity to a global activity, and the problems with food safety that globalization brings. Chapter 2 gives a reasonably comprehensive list of zoonoses that are, and are likely to be in the future, high on the list of important pathogens. Manure, the subject of Chapter 3, has always been a concern because it is one of the most important sources of disease to humans, but a less well-studied source of zoonoses in the food supply is the actual feed that comes on to or leaves a farm (Chapter 4). In the past, pasteurization had a critical role in making the milk supply safe for humans, but more recently there has been a trend towards the use of raw (non-pasteurized) milk (Chapter 5), partly because of a public concern with the use of antimicrobials in the food production system and the potential implications of this for human health (Chapter 6). As a result of these new challenges in securing the food supply, a number of on-farm mitigation strategies have been developed (Chapter 7). Organic agriculture has become popular partly because of the concerns raised by antibiotics in food production, and some regard organic production as a mitigation strategy for food safety in general (Chapter 8). However, food safety is a dynamic area, and mitigation strategies will be updated in the light of new threats to human health such as avian (and swine) influenza (Chapter 9), and Crohn's disease in humans (Chapter 10). The last chapter (Chapter 11) is a very interesting case study that illustrates what happens when a human disease threat posed by animal agriculture becomes public. This chapter examines the course of events and the policy development surrounding the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the UK, with some comparative data from North America also included.

In recent years, consumers have shown an increasing interest in food quality (undesirable substances such as bacteria, pesticides, drug residues and additives, as well as nutritional value, healthy additives, antioxidants, and selected fatty acids) and demand that the food they consume should not have a negative feature in terms of these components. Since food safety and quality is a critical issue that has a direct impact on human health, the ability to evaluate food quality and safety sensitively, quickly, and reliably is of great importance in the food industry. The increasing demand for reliable and robust methodology in biochemical sensing requires continuous advancement of sensor technologies especially in agro-food samples. Due to global epidemics, climate change, and other threats to the food supply chain worldwide, it is undeniable that moving towards robust and easy-to-implement technologies in all aspects of food production, packaging, and supply is paramount. With the enormous scarcity of nutrient-rich foods and their supply, especially in developing countries, the need to develop technologies and platforms that will push us towards better food production and supply is overwhelmingly imperative. Raman, a fast and sensitive detection technology, detects heavy metal pollution, agricultural and veterinary drug residues, abuse of food additives, and foodborne pathogenic microorganisms and plays an important role in its detection.