Proving food safety is a monumental challenge, if not an impossibility. However, with the appropriate tools and techniques one can confirm, with a high degree of statistical confidence, the effectiveness of a preventive control for reducing a specified hazard to an acceptable level or concentration that is consistent with achieving public health objectives.

The idea of the food safety objective (FSO) is relatively new. It was first introduced by the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMFS) in 2002 and then by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 2004.¹ The concept has not been in existence as long as HACCP or the principles of process validation. Fundamentally, the FSO concept "…translates public health risk into a definable goal: A specified maximum frequency and/or concentration of a hazard in a food at the time of consumption, which is deemed to provide an appropriate level of health protection (ALOP)."¹ This approach enables food safety scientists to both define and meet a specific FSO by the application of the principles of HACCP and process validation procedures. The FSOs, then, are the pre-determined specifications or acceptance criteria by which the success of the validation procedure is objectively measured. The FSOs also provide a scientific basis that allows industry to select and implement measures that control the hazards (Critical Control Points) of concern in a specific food or food processing operation.