Risk and hazard analysis of foods

Food safety is an emerging global challenge. There are many challenges to achieve supply of safe food for a domestic or an international market. One of the biggest problem is continuously changing global patterns of food production and consumption. These problems may include climate change, international trade, new technology development and growing population. These factors are also closely linked to ensure supply of nutritionally balanced and safe food to the world population. In other words ‘food security’ is similarly an emerging global problem. A wide range of hazards associated with food are posing risks to health and obstacles to international food trade. Different food items may carry risks from potential hazards that may come with them, therefore, the risks must be assessed and managed to ensure consumer’s safety. Risk analysis is a science-based systematic and disciplined approach to make food safety decisions easier. Hazard analysis and risk analysis are two important steps of the risk assessment process (Table 1). Risk analysis is a powerful tool that helps carrying out analysis to solve complex food safety problems. Risk analysis is generally conducted around a specific hazard or a combination of hazards.