Reducing the risk of foodborne illness is central to public health, yet overly stringent risk-reduction measures may exacerbate food insecurity, according to researchers at Frontiers in Science.
Wiedmann et al argue that food safety interventions should be assessed based on their environmental, economic, and equity impacts, rather than health outcomes alone.
“While the public often expects food to be ‘absolutely’ safe, experts recognise that all foods carry a residual risk of causing foodborne illness and that zero risk is neither achievable nor desirable,” said researchers.
“Just as we don’t limit highway speeds to 10 miles per hour to minimise road deaths, we need to take a balanced approach that considers possible negative consequences of extreme food safety measures,” added lead author Prof Martin Wiedmann from Cornell University.
Researchers noted that increasingly sensitive testing methods can detect contaminants at extremely low levels, creating pressure for recalls, product disposal, or additional controls even when the public health risk is minimal.
“Advances in diagnostics and surveillance systems (e.g., increases in test sensitivity and specificity) have increased the frequency of hazard detection in foods, including detection of hazards at levels that may pose minimal public health risks. However, efforts to manage these negligible risks can divert attention from more significant threats and may introduce unintended consequences that outweigh the intended benefits,” they added.
To address this, researchers advocate holistic trade-off assessments using a One Health framework that accounts for the interconnected health of humans, animals, and the environment while evaluating the costs and benefits of food safety measures, including direct expenses, externalities, social or legal constraints, and consumer preferences.
What is the One Health Joint Action Plan (OH JAP)?
One Health was launched by the Quadripartite – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE).
This first joint plan on One Health aims to create a framework to integrate systems and capacity so that we can collectively better prevent, predict, detect, and respond to health threats. Ultimately, this initiative seeks to improve the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment, while contributing to sustainable development.
Why food safety expectations continue to rise
This pressure is partly driven by growing consumer expectations around food safety, which researchers say are increasingly shaped by social media discussions.
Social media has emerged as a significant platform for consumers to access food safety information and engage in discussions, according to researchers in Cleaner and Responsible Consumption.
“Social media has intensified the dissemination of opinions on food safety, heightening consumer anxiety about food safety and health. At the same time, the widespread food safety opinion in social media also leads to negative emotions such as worry, anxiety, and panic among consumers, which reduces the perception of food safety; it also drives consumers to switch to buying high-quality and safe food,” they added.
At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) is promoting five strategic priorities to reduce the global burden of foodborne diseases.
The WHO Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022–2030 includes establishing a framework to coordinate the work of different authorities that manage national food control systems, and developing fit-for-purpose standards and guidelines.
“Regulatory bodies and certification agencies play a critical role in establishing testing protocols and quality benchmarks, thereby enabling reliable contamination monitoring and strengthening food safety governance frameworks across global supply chains,” said Abhishek Dhar, Team Lead for Food, Beverage, and Agriculture at MarketsandMarkets Research.
The growing emphasis on traceability, compliance, and contamination monitoring is also driving greater adoption of food safety testing technologies throughout the supply chain, he added.
While these technologies can strengthen food safety oversight, Wiedmann and colleagues caution that increasingly sensitive detection capabilities should be accompanied by risk-based decision-making to avoid disproportionate responses to minimal threats.
Dhar noted that implementing food pathogen testing systems can be complex and costly, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises in developing regions.
This echoes Wiedmann et al’s concerns about the sustainability of pursuing absolute food safety.
“Technological advances, such as AI-enabled risk negotiation, offer new opportunities to integrate trade-offs in risk analysis and support more balanced, effective food safety strategies,” they said.
“A tremendous amount of food is wasted that would have been sufficiently safe to eat. Too often, trade-offs such as environmental or economic costs are only considered after a traditional microbial risk assessment. We cannot afford to carry on like this at a time when we desperately need to reduce our impact on the planet and assure not only food safety but food security,” added co-author Prof Sophia Johler at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany.
