Food safety and health protection in practice

Over the course of time, various concepts relating to the hygiene and safety of food have been developed. These concepts apply to various levels of the food chain and have partially overlapping concerns. Recently, these systems relating to the safety of food have to be linked to programs of public health. This is carried out by starting from a global vision of the risk analysis, a systematic, disciplined framework where subsystems for the safety of food and the protection of health are meaningfully aligned and linked. Given that various risks and classes of risk such as chemical, microbiological and physical impurities can lead to a variety of risks of different types for consumers, international guidelines exist for the diverse risks. Their elements are taken into account in the HACCP management systems of companies. A scientific and consistent base of risk analysis leads to the estimation of risk. Since absolute security or freedom from all risks does not exist, the state operates using principles of precaution and risk models.