Suchergebnisse

This review discusses food safety aspects of importance from a One Health perspective, focusing on Europe. Using examples of food pathogen/food commodity combinations, spread of antimicrobial resistance in the food web and the risk of transmission of zoonotic pathogens in a circular system, it demonstrates how different perspectives are interconnected. The chosen examples all show the complexity of the food system and the necessity of using a One Health approach. Food safety resources should be allocated where they contribute most One Health benefits. Data on occurrence and disease burden and knowledge of source attribution are crucial in assessing costs and benefits of control measures. Future achievements in food safety, public health and welfare will largely be based on how well politicians, researchers, industry, national agencies and other stakeholders manage to collaborate using the One Health approach. It can be concluded that closer cooperation between different disciplines is necessary to avoid silo thinking when addressing important food safety challenges. The importance of this is often mentioned, but more proof of concept is needed by the research community.

A key issue in food governance and public administration is achieving coordinated implementation of policies. This study addressed this issue by systematically comparing the governance of animal welfare in Norway and Sweden, using published papers, reports, and legal and other public information, combined with survey and interview data generated in a larger research project (ANIWEL). Governing animal welfare includes a number of issues that are relevant across different sectors and policy areas, such as ethical aspects, choice of legal tools, compliance mechanisms and achieving uniform control. Based on the challenges identified in coordinating animal welfare in Norway and Sweden, relevant organisational preconditions for achieving uniform and consistent compliance were assessed. The results showed that Sweden's organisation may need more horizontal coordination, since its animal welfare management is divided between multiple organisational units (Swedish Board of Agriculture, National Food Agency and 21 regional County Administration Boards). Coordination in Norway is managed solely by the governmental agency Norwegian Food Safety Authority (NFSA), which has the full responsibility for inspection and control of food safety, animal health, plant health, as well as animal welfare. Thus, Norway has better preconditions than Sweden for achieving uniformity in animal welfare administration. However, in Norway, the safeguards for the rule of law might be an issue, due to NFSA acting as de facto "inspector", "prosecutor" and "judge".

Introduction: This paper presents an option for evaluating food control effectiveness by analysing the frequency of non-compliances (FnC). Material and methods: A food business establishment can have several different types of control areas (i.e. pest control, HACCP), that can be inspected to assess its compliance with regulations in the food sector. From April 2012 to April 2014, 10 736 inspections were performed in Sweden, covering all 15 types of control areas. In these inspections, 2223 non-compliances were found, giving a FnC of 0.21 per control area inspected. Outlying types of control areas, inspection teams and establishments were selected for supervision of the internal audit procedure. Results and discussion: The key and surprising finding was that types of control area, teams and establishments with high FnC had a higher ratio of false negative non-compliances than those with low FnC. Moreover, false negative non-compliances were more common than false positive non-compliances. Possible explanations include the complexity of legislation affecting food businesses and the complexities of the food business. Conclusions: The risk of non-compliance going undetected is greatest where many non-compliances have already been detected. These results should inform future food control strategies.

Background The traditional meat inspection system is often found to be inefficient. Meat inspection in European countries is in a phase of modernisation to reflect improvements in livestock health and advances in understanding meat safety. The key point of progress is to replace the traditional meat inspection with risk-based meat inspection, including the elements of a meat safety assurance system (MSAS). Scope and approach Modernisation of meat inspection was launched by the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) opinions and recommendations in the period 2011–2013 and consequent amendments to the EU meat inspection legislation in the period 2014–2019. For this study, the EU-funded RIBMINS COST Action conducted a comprehensive survey using an in-depth questionnaire to estimate the level of implementation of new risk-based meat inspection systems in Europe, stakeholders' confidence in the new systems and the main identified obstacles. Key findings and conclusions The implementation of new meat inspection systems is still ongoing, as they have been fully implemented in just 61%, 42% and 38% of the surveyed countries in the pig, bovine, and poultry sectors, respectively. The main identified obstacles are existing trade agreements with 3rd countries, costs of implementation, inadequate food chain information and resistance from meat inspectors. Improvement of all components of the current meat inspection systems is a prerequisite for further modernisation.

The traditional meat safety system has significantly contributed to public health protection throughout the last century. However, it has been recognised that this system suffers many flaws – the main being its limited ability to control the currently most important meat-borne hazards. The European Food Safety Authority evaluated meat inspection in the public health context, prioritised meat-borne hazards and proposed a generic framework for a new, risk-based meat safety assurance system. The proposed system aims to combine a range of preventive and control measures, applied at farms and abattoirs and integrated longitudinally, where official meat inspection is incorporated with producers' food safety management systems into a coherent whole. The modernisation process has recently started as a direct result of changes to relevant legislation in the European Union. Many challenges have been experienced while many opportunities are foreseen. More focus on targeted and risk-based inspection along the supply chain as well as use of new technologies may be a cost-effective and feasible way forward. Practical implementation of the system is expected to be a slow and careful process followed by thorough development, fine-tuning, and testing of practical feasibility and general impacts. Further progress that will lead to the full implementation is dependent on intensive research to fill knowledge gaps, enhance education and training and foster close collaboration of all the new system's stakeholders.

The traditional meat safety system has significantly contributed to public health protection throughout the last century. However, it has been recognised that this system suffers many flaws ? the main being its limited ability to control the currently most important meat-borne hazards. The European Food Safety Authority evaluated meat inspection in the public health context, prioritised meat-borne hazards and proposed a generic framework for a new, risk-based meat safety assurance system. The proposed system aims to combine a range of preventive and control measures, applied at farms and abattoirs and integrated longitudinally, where official meat inspection is incorporated with producers? food safety management systems into a coherent whole. The modernisation process has recently started as a direct result of changes to relevant legislation in the European Union. Many challenges have been experienced while many opportunities are foreseen. More focus on targeted and risk-based inspection along the supply chain as well as use of new technologies may be a cost-effective and feasible way forward. Practical implementation of the system is expected to be a slow and careful process followed by thorough development, fine-tuning, and testing of practical feasibility and general impacts. Further progress that will lead to the full implementation is dependent on intensive research to fill knowledge gaps, enhance education and training and foster close collaboration of all the new system?s stakeholders.