We can measure pathogens, characterize hazards, estimate exposure and evaluate whether interventions reduce risk. Increasingly, better data and analytical tools allow us to understand risks with greater resolution than ever before.
But science alone cannot answer one important question: How safe is safe enough?
Risk is partly a scientific calculation and partly a human judgment. A probability that seems very small to one person may feel quite different to another, and particularly when the potential consequence is serious illness. Growers, regulators, retailers, consumers and public health officials can look at the same evidence through different lenses.
That makes improving food safety more complicated than simply identifying the scientifically “right” answer.
Our current food safety systems have developed over decades of research, regulation and industry experience. Many practices exist for good reason and have contributed to making the food supply safer. At the same time, science continues to advance. We learn more about how contamination occurs, how unevenly it can be distributed and how environmental conditions can change risk.
As our understanding improves, our systems should have the ability to evolve with it. That does not require beginning with the assumption that the food supply is unsafe. It requires something more nuanced, recognizing that “safe” is not a single, objectively defined threshold.
Instead, we should be clear about what we are trying to accomplish. What level of risk are we trying to manage? What type of contamination event are we trying to prevent or detect? What confidence do we expect from a testing or surveillance program? And what evidence would demonstrate that a new approach represents an improvement?
These questions are particularly important when asking people to change established practices. Change has costs, operational consequences and uncertainty of its own. It is reasonable for growers and food companies to ask whether a proposed change will actually make a meaningful difference.
That is why food safety programs, new or existing, should ultimately be scientifically and operationally defensible. Defensible not just in terms of food safety, but also in terms of the operation. It’s an important point to ensure that food safety plans protect companies from undue risk exposure in business and legal sense as well.
Defensible does not mean perfect. It means grounded in the best available science, designed around a clearly articulated risk and capable of explaining why the actions being taken are proportional to that risk.
The hard science helps us understand hazards, exposure and interventions. The social science helps us understand how people perceive risk, make decisions and adapt as evidence changes.
We need both.
Because the next generation of food safety is grounded in improving resolution on risk and data will not be built by simply asking people to do more.
It will be built by making a clear, scientifically and legally defensible case for why doing something different will make us all more protected.
