Managing Food Safety and Hygiene: Governance and Regulation as Risk Management

Food safety and hygiene is of critical importance to us all, yet, as periodic food crises in various countries each year show, we are all dependent on others in business and public regulation to ensure that the food we consume in the retailing and hospitality sectors is safe. Bridget Hutter considers the understandings of risk and regulation held by those in business and considers the compliance pressures on managers and owners, and how these relate to understandings of risk and uncertainty.

Using data from an in-depth case study of the food retail and catering sectors in the UK, the research investigates how business risk management practices are influenced by external pressures such as state regulation, consumers, insurance and the media and by pressures within business. The argument of the book is that food businesses in the UK are generally motivated to manage risk. They realize that good risk management aligns with good business practice. However, there are challenges for an industry that is highly segmented in terms of risk management capacity. The findings have implications for contemporary risk regulation in the increasingly number of countries that rely on self-regulation.

Managing Food Safety and Hygiene will prove invaluable for academic researchers and students in risk regulation studies, business studies, food studies, organizational studies, social psychology, socio-legal studies, sociology, management, public administration and political science. In addition, the book will also appeal to practitioners specifically to senior policy makers, regulators and business risk managers charged with managing risk in diverse organizational settings, and across different functional jurisdictions.

Bridget M. Hutter, Professor of Risk Regulation, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK