Combining analysis tools and mathematical modeling to enhance and harmonize food safety and food defense regulatory requirements

The past decade has seen rapid developments in risk assessment techniques and tools related to food safety and food defense. These advances are beginning to have a significant impact on the decision making processes used by risk managers in both government and industry. Furthermore, the highly complex issues currently facing the management of food safety risks on an international basis are likely to require even more sophisticated assessments. One of the key challenges that must be met to advance the adoption of risk analysis principles is learning how risk managers can best utilize the results of risk assessments as they must take the results of complex stochastic models and adapt the findings to the binary decision criteria that are the basis for legal decisions. This will require a better articulation of key principles of food safety risk management, such as the recently adopted Codex Alimentarius “Principles and Guidelines for the Conduct of Microbial Risk Management.”