Modern food systems challenged by food safety culture

Jevšnik Podlesnik, Mojca (author), Raspor, Peter (author)

Despite decades of regulatory development, standardized food safety management systems, and technological advances, foodborne outbreaks, recalls, and food fraud continue to pose significant public health and societal challenges. These persistent failures increasingly reveal systemic vulnerabilities that deficiencies in legislation or formal control mechanisms alone cannot explain. Instead, they highlight the critical role of human behaviour, organizational culture, and socio-technical interactions within modern, complex agrifood networks. Food safety culture has therefore emerged as a key determinant of food safety performance, linking regulatory frameworks with everyday practices in food establishments. While HACCP-based systems clearly define procedures and responsibilities, their effectiveness is limited when behavioural consistency, leadership commitment, communication, and resource availability are weak. Research consistently shows that even well-designed systems are insufficiently monitored when organizational alignment and behavioural adherence are lacking, allowing deviations from safe practices to persist. Contemporary approaches move beyond compliance-driven models towards cultural transformation, emphasizing leadership engagement, effective risk communication, learning-oriented environments, and evidence-based behavioural interventions. Increasingly, digital tools and real-time monitoring systems support this transition by strengthening feedback, transparency, and adaptive risk management across food systems. Strengthening food safety culture therefore requires coordinated, multi-level action that integrates governance, technology and human-oriented approaches. Such transformation is essential not only for improving food safety outcomes but also for protecting public health, maintaining consumer trust and enhancing the long-term resilience and sustainability of modern food systems.

• Language: English
• Keywords: food safety, human factor, food safety culture, human behaviour, food systems, good practices
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: ZF - Faculty of Health Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 81-96
• Numbering: Vol. 64, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180743
• UDC: 614.31
• ISSN on article: 1330-9862
• DOI: 10.17113/ftb.64.01.26.9508
• COBISS.SI-ID: 271773443
• Publication date in RUL: 16.03.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Food technology and biotechnology : journal of the Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology University of Zagreb
• Shortened title: Food technol. biotechnol.
• Publisher: Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology
• ISSN: 1330-9862
• COBISS.SI-ID: 40116737

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P3-0388-2022
• Name: Mehanizmi varovanja zdravja