Building the Science Foundation of a Modern Food Safety System
Lessons from Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom on Creating a More Coodinated and Integrated Approach to Food Safety Information

A science- and risk-driven approach is built upon a foundation of data. Those working in food safety often face the dual problems of both too much and too little information; they must cope with an explosion of information from individuals and organizations, but the specific information they require may not be available or accessible—if it has been collected at all. While positive efforts in the United States are attempting to address these challenges, serious obstacles remain. Ultimately, improving the risk basis of the U.S. food safety system will require a more coordinated and integrated approach to collecting, managing, analyzing, and communicating food safety information.

These challenges are not unique to the United States, and the efforts of other countries to institute programs, policies, and practices to support a risk-informed system can inform similar efforts in this country. In particular, the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or “mad cow disease,” epidemic and large Salmonella outbreaks in the 1990s led to major changes in the food safety systems of Europe. The reforms of the past decade also have had significant implications for the role of risk analysis in food safety decision-making and, subsequently, have affected the way that data are collected and analyzed to support policy.

This report focuses on food safety activities in three countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The food safety efforts of these case-study countries are highly respected, and all three countries have undertaken significant reform to improve the science and analytical basis of their food safety decisions. This report also draws lessons from efforts at the European Union (EU) level.

The purpose of this report is not to directly compare the food safety systems of the United States and these three European countries nor to suggest that the United States should seek to employ a European approach to food safety. Rather, the goal is to learn from a decade of significant food safety reforms in Europe, with a focus on examples of programs, policies, and activities that could improve food safety in the United States.

This report is authored by Michael Batz is head of Food Safety Programs, Emerging Pathogens Institute at University of Florida, and J. Glenn Morris, Jr., is director, Emerging Pathogens Institute at University of Florida.

Download the PDF to read the full report.