Food safety management systems: The role of cognitive and cultural biases in determining what is ‘safe enough’

Background: Food safety management systems (FSMS) are designed and implemented to control, and where possible eliminate, the potential food safety hazards associated with a product and how food is produced to ensure compliance with food safety legislation, retailer standards and/or private third-party certification standards. However, the design, validation, implementation and verification of FSMS can be subject to both conscious and unconscious bias that inform risk management and risk acceptance.

Scope and approach: The aim of this structured review is to firstly consider existing hazard analysis and risk assessment approaches to developing and implementing FSMS, and approaches to defining what is “safe enough’ and, secondly to explore the role of cognitive and cultural biases in decision-making.

Key findings and conclusions: Cognitive and cultural biases can influence food safety assessment, FSMS design and perceptions, management and acceptance of food safety risk. A better understanding of their influence and how this informs scientific and lay approaches to hazard analysis and food safety risk assessment could provide more insight into how regulators, food business operators, staff and consumers assess and accept food safety risk.