From Systems to Culture
Food safety systems have evolved from trial-and-error practices to highly sophisticated, science-based and regulatory frameworks.
However, despite these advances, food safety failures continue to occur, highlighting the limitations of system-based approaches alone.
This shift calls for a renewed focus on how food safety is enacted in practice: through people, behaviours, and organisational culture.
Food safety has evolved from technical control and regulatory systems toward a recognition that safe practice depends on how systems are enacted in everyday organisational life.
The Food Safety Culture Lab builds on this shift by examining how behaviour, leadership, and social structures shape the effectiveness of food safety systems in practice.
Food safety has historically been advanced through scientific discovery, technological innovation, and the development of regulatory systems. From early preservation methods to modern frameworks such as HACCP, the field has progressively strengthened its capacity to identify, control, and prevent hazards across the food chain.These system-based approaches have been highly effective in establishing standards, improving consistency, and enabling global trade. Advances in detection technologies, including whole genome sequencing, have further enhanced the precision and responsiveness of food safety systems.However, despite these developments, foodborne risks persist. This raises a critical question: why do failures still occur in systems that are scientifically robust and tightly regulated?A shift in focus:
Traditional approaches have largely treated food safety as a technical and compliance-driven challenge, relying on audits, procedures, and end-product testing. While essential, these mechanisms provide only a partial view of how safety is actually achieved in practice.Increasingly, attention is turning to the everyday realities of food systems—how decisions are made, how practices are enacted, and how responsibilities are understood and shared across organisations.From system design to lived practice:
Food safety is not sustained by systems alone. It is shaped by people, routines, relationships, and the organisational environments in which work takes place.Understanding this shift requires moving beyond formal structures to examine how food safety is translated into action within real-world contexts. This includes recognising the role of leadership, social dynamics, and behavioural norms in influencing how systems function on the ground.The role of Food Safety Culture:
The Food Safety Culture Lab builds on this perspective by examining how food safety emerges through practice. Our work focuses on the interaction between systems and people, exploring how culture, behaviour, and organisational conditions enable—or constrain—the consistent delivery of safe food.By integrating insights from behavioural science, systems thinking, and industry practice, we aim to better understand not only how food safety systems are designed, but how they are sustained, adapted, and lived in everyday operations.