Risk Assessment

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Industry 4.0 relies on a group of disruptive technologies to drive insights and speed in decision-making. This article demonstrates the potential benefits that can be created and captured across a food business through thoughtful and deliberate application of Industry 4.0 technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), while offering remarkable advancements in various fields, also presents a paradoxical threat, especially when misused. 

Ignoring psychosocial risks in a food business—including control and support—gives a false sense of security for leaders, who may believe that high external inspection and audit scores mean that the company has a strong food safety system and culture.
 

Addressing concerns around brominated flame retardants in the environment and food, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is updating its decade-old risk assessments on different families of the chemicals. EFSA has launched a public consultation regarding the draft scientific opinion on the update of the risk assessment of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) and its derivatives in food.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published a guidance for national authorities about how to design, implement, and communicate a risk-based food inspection system.

This article explores the benefits offered by "beneficial" artificial intelligence (AI) as applied to the food and beverage industry and specifically to food safety practices. It discusses relevant elements of President Biden's October 2023 Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, as well as the Department of Defense's June 2023 Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy, and what these documents mean to AI applications in food safety.

The rapid rise of plant-based meat alternatives means that knowledge of the food safety risks of these products is still limited. In particular, microbial growth and inactivation kinetics is not well understood. Additionally, consumers face a learning curve in understanding how to safely handle plant-based meat alternatives. 

At the 2023 Food Safety Summit, a dynamic workshop brought together leading experts to introduce the concepts, methods, and different tools of root cause analysis (RCA). Participants learned how to dig into systems and find meaningful data to identify the root causes of issues develop impactful solutions that prevent problems from recurring. An RCA session at the 2024 Summit will further explore these concepts. This article discusses applied RCA and the Food Safety Summit associated education offered on this topic.

Based on a recent risk assessment conducted by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European consumers’ dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic is a health concern, with associated effects including different types of cancer, birth issues, and other issues.

A recent publication from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has provided an in-depth review of early warning systems for food safety risks, an explanation of available open access tools, and the potential applications of Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) in the field.