For healthy food: understanding how to manage food safety risks. Introduction and background

Risk management in the food sector is achieved through a series of processes involving the identification of hazards, their characterisation, the estimation of exposure to these hazards, and finally the characterisation of the risk. Given the multitude of chemical risks to which consumers are exposed, a simplified approach – the concept of a ‘toxicological threshold of concern’ – has gradually become established, enabling thousands of compounds to be assessed within a reasonable timeframe. The ‘exposure margin’ is now also applied to assist risk managers in prioritising the implementation of risk management measures for carcinogenic and genotoxic compounds. With regard to microbiological risk, a preventive approach has become established, based on ‘Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)’. A set of European regulations, the ‘hygiene package’, harmonises health and safety standards, formalises the responsibilities of professionals and optimises regulatory controls. It is in the area of communication on food risks that considerable effort remains to be made to ensure that consumers have a more accurate perception of the actual risks and of the strengths and weaknesses of our systems for managing these risks.