Food Safety Culture Lab Launches Postgraduate Teaching Module
Yesterday marked a significant milestone for the Food Safety Culture (FSC) Lab: the inaugural full day of classes for our new postgraduate teaching module! 🚀
It was an intensive day for our class of 17 students as they bridged the gap between historical foundations and modern behavioural science. Prof Phil Bremer reviewed the history of food safety before introducing the pivotal concept of Food Safety Culture, followed by Prof Miranda Mirosa, who explored the psychology of culture, applying multiple lenses to diagnose why trained staff make unsafe choices and how to build systems that make safety the intuitive choice.
Workshop:
Auditing with Behavioural Science 🛠️ In the workshop sessions, students put theory into practice. They used Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Behavioural Economics to identify the friction (the barriers that make safety difficult) and the fuel (the incentives that drive positive habits) within a facility.
It is inspiring to see these future leaders tackling the human element of food safety with such rigour and passion. The course runs for 4 weeks. The theory comes to life next week as the class heads off to a dairy processing factory to see culture in action.
A significant step for food safety culture research, this teaching module brings together behavioural science and real-world industry practice to support more effective and sustainable safety systems.
2026 | 04 | 02
Food Safety Culture · Behavioural Science · Higher Education · University of Otago · Industry Practice · Public Health