FSA to examine safety culture in food business

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is to investigate the reasons behind poor food safety culture in some food businesses, which can result in serious food poisoning outbreaks.

It is commissioning an evidence review on cultures and behaviours in relation to regulatory compliance both in food businesses and enforcement bodies. The research, which starts this month, is expected to be completed by next Spring.

The aim is to investigate culture and behaviour in businesses and enforcement bodies, and the communication between individuals in these two groups, to understand ‘what works’, FSA head of delivery for food hygiene Catherine Bowles informed a meeting of the FSA’s Social Science Research Committee (SSRC).
The work follows Professor Hugh Pennington’s Public Inquiry report published earlier this year into the outbreak of E.coli O157​ in South Wales in 2005. This report identified a number of failures by the food company involved, as well as in inspection and auditing procedures. “Our challenge is tackling those businesses that share those cultures,” said Bowles.
One of the contributing factors to the breach by the company involved, butcher John Tudor & Sons of Bridgend, was considered to be the nature of its poor food safety culture. However, enforcement officers were also found to have taken inadequate action, so the research will examine the communication between enforcers and those being inspected.
“I certainly feel very keenly that we are all about ensuring the tools are there and they are being used properly,” said Bowles. “We need to understand what drives food business compliance.”

SSRC committee member Dr Michael Howard, a lecturer in environmental health at King’s College London, expressed concern that, all too often, authorities believed the solution to food safety issues, such as the increased incidence of Campylobacter in raw chicken, lay in understanding the microbiology. Howard said: “The FSA needs to look at how social science fits into the food chain.”

However, fellow SSRC member Professor Ben Fine, a political economist at the University of London, remarked: “I would not like the issues around resources devoted to enforcement to be overlooked.”