The contemporary governance of food safety: taking stock and looking ahead

The food safety sector has grown extensively during the last two decades. Both in Europe and in the United States, we can observe a surge of regulatory activity on the one hand, and institutional proliferation accompanied by technological expertise for the purpose of monitoring, on the other hand. At the same time, mechanisms have been installed to allow a faster and more effective reaction to food-related infection outbreaks. Where do we stand today with respect to food safety regulation? And what are the main challenges faced for the future? This is the question addressed by this article. We first consider the European food safety legislative system, as this has emerged over the last years. The European system represents the first comprehensive food safety regulation framework that is tailored to modern challenges. The second section considers the governance structures operating at national and international levels as well as in the private sector for dealing with food safety. The third section compares the different approaches to food safety in two key sub-sectors, namely chemical contamination and microbiological safety. Based on this analysis, we outline in the concluding section the main challenges facing the food safety sector in the future.