Improving food safety within the dairy chain: an application of conjoint analysis

This study determined the relative importance of attributes of food safety improvement in the production chain of fluid pasteurized milk. The chain was divided into 4 blocks: "feed" (compound feed production and its transport), "farm" (dairy farm), "dairy processing" (transport and processing of raw milk, delivery of pasteurized milk), and "consumer" (retailer/catering establishment and pasteurized milk consumption). The concept of food safety improvement focused on 2 main groups of hazards: chemical (antibiotics and dioxin) and microbiological (Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, and Staphylococcus aureus). Adaptive conjoint analysis was used to investigate food safety experts' perceptions of the attributes' importance. Preference data from individual experts (n = 24) on 101 attributes along the chain were collected in a computer-interactive mode. Experts perceived the attributes from the "feed" and "farm" blocks as being more vital for controlling the chemical hazards; whereas the attributes from the "farm" and "dairy processing" were considered more vital for controlling the microbiological hazards. For the chemical hazards, "identification of treated cows" and "quality assurance system of compound feed manufacturers" were considered the most important attributes. For the microbiological hazards, these were "manure supply source" and "action in salmonellosis and M. paratuberculosis cases". The rather high importance of attributes relating to quality assurance and traceability systems of the chain participants indicates that participants look for food safety assurance from the preceding participants. This information has substantial decision-making implications for private businesses along the chain and for the government regarding the food safety improvement of fluid pasteurized milk.     

我国流通消费领域食品安全现状及对策研究

分析了我国流通消费领域食品安全存在的主要问题.在研究并借鉴发达国家的主要经验和做法的基础上,综合考虑流通消费环节影响食品安全的各种关键因素,以系统科学理论和控制理论为指导,设计了流通消费领域食品安全体系总体框架.在此框架的指导下,分别从法律法规体系建设、标准体系建设、检测体系建设、市场准入体系建设和社会信用体系建设等方面提出了加强消费领域影响食品安全的对策与建议.     

欧盟转基因食品安全的法律基础

食品安全的法律建设 ,既是保证食品安全 ,搞好“放心菜篮子”的需要 ,也是在国际贸易中实施本国环境战略的需要。简要介绍欧盟转基因食品安全的法律要求 ,以期在我国相应的法律建设中起参考作用。     

从《食品安全法》看我国食品安全监管体制的完善

食品安全问题日趋成为人们关注的焦点,"三鹿"事件的发生加快了我国《食品安全法》的出台。此文从我国食品安全监管体制的发展过程出发,指出了原来监管体制中存在的问题,最后结合《食品安全法》的内容以及实施,构建了科学安全的食品安全监管新体制。     

基于物联网的冷链食品安全监控系统的设计与实施

为实现冷链食品的安全管理与预警,设计了基于物联网技术的冷链食品安全监控系统.该系统通过传感器、射频识别、全球定位系统等物联网技术,实现冷链食品信息的自动采集、传输和处理,从而实现冷链食品的安全监控及预警管理.鉴于该系统的推广还面临许多问题,应加快物联网标准体系建设,加快RFID及传感器等关键技术的开发研究,形成具有自主知识产权的物联网技术核心,高度重视物联网发展带来的安全问题,积极引导行业示范应用,以推动基于物联网技术的食品安全监控系统的快速发展.     

德国食品安全与日常生活用品的法律基础

食品安全的法律建设 ,既是保证食品安全的需要 ,也是在国际贸易中实施本国环境战略的需要。简要论述了德国食品安全的法律法规以及与人类健康相关的日常生活用品的法律要求 ,以期在我国食品安全的法律建设中起参考作用     

Uncovering the mind-sets of consumers towards food safety messages

Knowing the specific characteristics which trigger a strong sense of safe versus unsafe allows risk communicators to reach consumers effectively with targeted messages. Using experimental design of ideas and conjoint measurement, we assessed consumer interest in and perceived safety of food characteristics that consumers think to be important when they make a purchase decision. The study identified the specific characteristics and the associated phrasing. The data generate a database by which we understand the perceptions of risk. In turn the database shows how these risk perceptions vary by conventional subgroups (age, gender, ethnicity), and by different mind-sets that exist in the population. The results combine insights about acceptance with insights about safety, answering questions that could not have been previously addressed in this efficient, quantitative way. The study is the first in a series designed to create a large-scale database of safety for food, beverage, and eating situation, based on the perceptions of consumers. The study opens up a new area for consumer understanding dealing with the perception of intangible topics including safety, compliance, and ‘good-for-you’.     

Consumer confidence in the safety of food in Canada and the Netherlands: The validation of a generic framework

A thorough understanding of consumer confidence in the safety of food and the factors by which this is influenced is necessary for the development of adequate and effective risk management and communication regarding food safety issues. As food chains become globalized, risk management and communication are increasingly applied at international levels. As a consequence, cross-culturally valid theoretical models are needed to investigate consumer confidence in the safety of food. In this study, consumer confidence in the safety of food in Canada and the Netherlands was systematically compared. On the basis of two nationally representative samples, it was examined to what extent differences in consumer confidence between the two countries resulted from differences in the relative importance of the determinants of confidence, and differences in the means of the constructs. No differences between Canada and the Netherlands were found regarding the relative importance of the determinants, which provides support for the generalizability of the framework. However, results indicated that Dutch consumers had a higher level of optimism and a lower level of pessimism regarding the safety of food, which appeared to be mainly related to Dutch consumers’ lower level of concern about factors related to production. The results also indicated cross-national differences in consumer recall of food safety issues in the media.     

Microbiological food safety assessment of high hydrostatic pressure processing: A review

High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing as a novel non-thermal method has shown great potential in producing microbiologically safer products while maintaining the natural characteristics of the food items. Scientific research of the process and its industrial applications has been widespread in the past two decades with many scientific publications describing its uses, advantages and limitations. The review describes the effect of HHP on foodborne pathogenic microorganisms, their structures and adaptive mechanisms, the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect its application with a focus on microbiological safety, and research needs. In a risk assessment context, tools and mechanisms in place to monitorize, optimize and validate the process, and procedures for assessing and modelling the lethal effect of the treatment are reviewed.     

从“苏丹红”事件谈食品安全法的必要性

从频频出现的含苏丹红的食品。以及出现的食品安全质量问题，到我国政府及时出台苏丹红检验标准和食品安全法。反映出我国食品安全法的出台，必将使我国的食品市场环境得以规范，给人民生活消费提供一个安全的保障，形成一个良性循环体制。     

An RFID application in the food supply chain: A case study of convenience stores in Taiwan

Food hazards can appear at any stage of global food supply chains, making it essential to define critical control points to capture the data about ingredients, manufacture and dates-certain (sell-by, use-by), etc., and provide it in a transparent manner to supply chain participants and consumers. The government of Taiwan has appointed a non-profit research organization to conduct a pilot project to launch a potential national-wide food traceability system to increase the intangible value of purchased food and to enhance food safety. This paper discusses a financially viable business model for a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application to a food traceability system. We conduct a case study of RFID implementation in the chain of convenience stores in Taiwan. The Taiwanese experiment may have implications for policy-makers, industry and public health officials elsewhere.     

食品机械基础件安全卫生标准的要求和分析

介绍了不锈钢钢管、管件、阀门等食品机械基础件类产品的安全卫生标准,根据国际标准要求和国内外应用情况,分析说明有关影响因素。     

Microbes versus microbes: control of pathogens in the food chain

Foodborne illness continues as a considerable threat to public health. Despite improved hygiene management systems and increased regulation, pathogenic bacteria still contaminate food, causing sporadic cases of illness and disease outbreaks worldwide. For many centuries, microbial antagonism has been used in food processing to improve food safety. An understanding of the mode of action of this microbial antagonism has been gained in recent years and potential applications in food and feed safety are now being explored. This review focuses on the potential opportunities presented, and the limitations, of using microbial antagonism as a biocontrol mechanism to reduce contamination along the food chain; including animal feed as its first link. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

Migration of additives from polymers into food simulants: numerical solution of a mathematical model taking into account food and polymer interactions

The principle of a computing program describing precisely the migration of additives from a polymer into a food simulant is presented. As six parameters are used to fit the simulant sorption and additive extraction kinetics, the parameters have been determined by independent experiments. Owing to the complicated coupling between the liquid and additive diffusion processes, migration kinetics cannot be obtained by a mathematical resolution of kinetic equations, but they must be calculated by numerical analysis. The method is applied to a UV absorber in polypropylene migrating into glyceryl tripelargonate, a pure triglyceride, of which behaviour and average molecular weight are similar to official fatty food simulants. Properly designed experiments validate the model used to fit the migration kinetics. The possibility of erasing any parameters is also discussed.     

Near-infrared spectroscopy and imaging in food quality and safety

Over the last two decades, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has established itself as a non-destructive analytical technique in a variety of disciplines. However, recent technological advancements in hardware design and data mining techniques have unleashed the potential of NIRS to become a tool of choice for routine analyses of agricultural products. The current paper synthesizes the status of NIRS in the agri-food industry in terms of hardware and software development as well as the direction in which the NIRS research is headed. An extensive review of literature reveals that the emphasis on hardware development is focused on developing compact, robust, and portable spectrometers and hyperspectral imaging (HSI) systems. The software development on the other hand is geared towards developing better preprocessing, analyses, and modeling techniques using chemometrics, support vector machines, and artificial neural networks. The four main agri-food sectors identified to be the beneficiaries of this research revolution are grain quality monitoring; post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables; identification of contaminants in animal produce and feed; and food safety and authenticity. Apart from discussing the aforementioned topics, the paper also provides food scientists some working knowledge on parameters crucial to the performance of spectral and imaging systems. It is expected that further development of NIRS will help agricultural and food scientists to enhance the quality and safety of our food.     

Photoinitiators: a food safety review

Ultraviolet light printing inks are considered safer than the classical inks; however, despite being on the outer surface of the packaging material, their components can migrate into foodstuffs and can give rise to contamination. Photoinitiators are a part of the formulation of printing inks, being an important class of migrant, for which there have been more than 100 incidents of contamination of packaged food with photoinitiators reported through Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) alerts in the European Union. In this review the process of photo-polymerisation is explained in depth to provide an insight into the complexity of the process, and the diversity of potential contaminants together with their degradation products. The critical factors affecting the migration process itself are reviewed, together with analytical methods and the current legislation in the European Union and other parts of the world.     

A novel real-time polymerase chain reaction method for the qualitative detection of pistachio in food

In order to provide an appropriate method for the detection of pistachio (Pistacia vera) in food products, a novel real-time PCR was developed. The pistachio-specific primers and the TaqMan fluorogenic probe were designed to target the internal transcribed spacer between 18S ribosomal RNA and 5.8S ribosomal RNA genes. Using dilutions of the pistachio DNA, the intrinsic detection limit of the method was determined to be 0.012 pg. At specificity testing, the method was positive for 11 pistachio varieties and negative for 26 plant and animal species used in food industry. A detection limit of 0.0004% (w/w) was determined for pistachio nuts in model pastry. Practical applicability of the elaborated method was tested by the analysis of 44 food samples, out of which 7 food products were identified as containing undeclared pistachio. The developed real-time PCR may be utilized for sensitive and selective detection of pistachio in food products.     

A novel real-time polymerase chain reaction method for the detection of pecan nuts in food

A real-time PCR-based method for the detection of the pecan (Carya illinoiensis) component in food is described. The method consists of DNA isolation by chaotropic solid phase extraction and the subsequent PCR with pecan-specific primers and a TaqMan fluorescent probe. The primers and the probe are targeted to the putative gene for allergenic vicilin-like seed storage protein of pecan. The method was positive for 10 pecan varieties and negative for all other tested plant materials used in food industry, including walnut. The intrinsic detection limit of the method was 1 pg pecan DNA which corresponds to 1.2 haploid genome copies. Using a series of model pastry samples with defined pecan contents, a practical detection limit of 0.01% (w/w) pecan was estimated. Practical applicability of the PCR method was tested by the analysis of 13 food samples; no discrepancies between the declared and detected pecan contents were found. The presented PCR method is useful for sensitive and selective detection of pecans in food samples and can be performed in one working day.     

Food safety and acceptance of management options after radiological contaminations of the food chain

After an accidental radioactive release leading to contamination of the food chain, countermeasures may be used to reduce the radiological health risk to the population and to bring social reassurance. This paper analyses public acceptance and consumer’s behaviour for various countermeasures for contaminated milk as revealed by a recent public survey in Belgium. The survey instrument used was Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing. A simulated news bulletin was included for a fast and realistic briefing on the situation investigated. The results show that clean feeding of dairy cattle and disposal of contaminated milk are the preferred options in case of contaminations above legal norms. For contaminations below legal norms, normal consumption of milk seems better accepted than disposal. Nonetheless, the expressed consumer’s behaviour reveals a precautionary tendency: the presence of radioactivity at some step in the food chain could lead to avoiding purchasing products from affected areas. Finally, public trust building is revealed as a key element of a successful countermeasure strategy.     

建立企业食品安全体系的联合监管作用研究

通过博弈分析,研究了食品安全风险为高低两类的情况下,公共政策法规对生产企业建立食品安全体系的监管作用,并进一步研究了引入供应链中零售商对生产企业进行联合监管的作用。结果表明,无论食品污染的风险是什么类型,公共政策法规绝对强制性地监管会促使生产企业自愿地建立食品安全体系。当食品污染风险较低的行业,食品供应链中零售商的联合监管作用,更会迫使生产企业自愿实施食品安全措施。