Over the last decade there has been an unexplained increase in cases of listeriosis in the UK observed almost exclusively in those aged over 60 (SSRC, 2009, ACMSF, 2009). Domestic food safety practices have been hypothesised as one contributing factor to this increase (SSRC, 2009), and this research was funded to explore these practices in more detail. Using the North East of England as the geographical focus for the research, a mixed method approach was chosen using a complement of traditional and innovative research methods in a two-phase approach. Phase 1 was a large-scale administered questionnaire (n=213), designed to profile independently residing older adults (aged 60+) based upon their knowledge of, and reported practices associated with, domestic food safety. Factor and cluster analyses revealed a 3-cluster solution, which provided the basis for detailed narrative typologies of the clusters which were labelled i) ‘Independent Self- assessors’ ii) ‘Experienced Dismissers’ and iii) ‘Compliant Minimalists’ These findings highlighted the heterogeneity of the 60+ population with respect to their living and health circumstances, social networks and their food safety knowledge and behavioural practices. The risk of foodborne illness was not identified as linear with age, rather levels of vulnerability to foodborne risks varied across the cohort. Phase 2 purposively sampled 10 households from Phase 1 for an ethnographically inspired study (EIS), which took a Social Practice Theory perspective to observe domestic food handling practices. Data were generated using life-course interviews fridge auditing including microbiological sampling kitchen ‘go-alongs’ food purchase history, activity recognition and video documentation. In addition to confirming the findings of Phase 1, the substantive theoretical contribution of Phase 2 was the concept of ‘Independence Transitioning’. Food provisioning practices were the observed outcome of the value negotiations made by the household to adapt to the incremental changes experienced as part of the ageing process that facilitated independent living. Although food safety issues were XXV implicit within these practices, they were not a salient factor within food provisioning or handling. This was therefore concluded to compound their risk of contracting illness as a result of foodborne disease.

Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) is the system of choice for the Food Standards Agency in attempting to improve risk management within the UK food industry. Informing the debate surrounding the potential barriers to HACCP implementation, this research aimed to identify the factors influencing the uptake of such systems and profile the potential costs and benefits of their implementation either individually or as part of industry wide initiatives. Results from a 1997 postal survey showed that 69% of UK food manufacturers reported having implemented HACCP, compared to only 15% of caterers and 13%o of retailers. Business size, status, managerial risk perceptions and training levels were associated with use of HACCP within individual industry sectors. The experience of eight case studies suggested that HACCP systems had been able to be implemented within the reasonable financial means of businesses both large and small. Although tangible financial benefits as a result of HACCP were experienced by only one case study, the less tangible benefits of improved food safety control through HACCP were recognised. Evaluation of a sector wide HACCP initiative for English retail butchers identified average implementation costs of f859. Although significant improvements in HACCP related knowledge and ability were delivered by the training provided, many managers believed that they would require further support to help maintain their system. Results from a Vickrey auction suggested that a substantial proportion of consumers would be willing to pay more for HACCP, although once mandatory, the system attracts lower premiums. Recommendations made for further action in promoting the wider use of HACCP include the need for monitoring of HACCP implementation rates, the provision of further evidence on the likely costs and benefits of HACCP and the need to ensure a sound basis for HACCP by improving general levels of hygiene practice and hygiene training.

Foodborne disease is recognised as an important public health problem, with the domestic kitchen thought to be a point of origin for many cases. Foodborne pathogens associated with a range of raw foods can contaminate the kitchen unless appropriate food safety control measures are implemented. Consumer food safety education is therefore required to improve food safety practices during food preparation, and thus reduce the risk of foodborne disease. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been used to evaluate consumer attitudes towards food safety in the domestic kitchen and food safety education. Additionally, food safety behaviours have been assessed using an advanced observational technique incorporating CCTV and risk based scoring. This provided a quantitative assessment of the frequency, consistency and reproducibility of food safety malpractices, and enabled an evaluation of food safety intervention effectiveness. Observations showed that food safety behaviours were variable and in many cases unsafe, indicating the need for food safety education. Overall, general consumer attitudes towards food safety in the domestic kitchen and food safety education were positive, although differences in respondent demographics highlighted the need for targeted educational efforts. Research findings informed development of a social marketing initiative that aimed to improve specific food safety behaviours. Observation results showed that the majority of consumers implemented unsafe cross contamination behaviours, so improvement of such actions was determined as the behavioural objective of the initiative. An evaluation of behaviours before and after intervention suggested that a 'one-off’ social marketing strategy resulted in an initial behavioural improvement, which was not wholly maintained after 4-6 weeks. Results indicate that application of social marketing to food safety education may help to improve consumer food safety behaviours and reduce the risk of foodborne disease. Cumulatively, this thesis has improved our understanding of consumer food safety behaviour, and provided important data to inform the development of future food safety education initiatives that intend to raise awareness of food safety issues, and bring about behavioural change.

Risk communication disseminated during a food safety incident plays an important role in shaping consumer purchasing behaviour. Consumer research shows that immediately after a food safety incident the demand of indicted products falls rapidly and then starts to increase slowly when consumer confidence is restored. Another important aspect of risk communication is to understand how messages influence the magnitude of consumers' perceived risk and how this element can affect food purchasing behaviour. However, very little is known about the cognitive process that consumers undertake when markets are shocked by food scares and how perceived risk influence consumers' choices. In order to fill such a gap this study aims at understanding how people react and behave in food markets with and without a food safety incident caused by E. coli in meat products. To achieve this objective models of social psychology and economics were combined to assess how consumers' subjective probability (De Finetti's theorem on exchangeability) and psychological reactions (Protection Motivation Theory) impact on willingness to pay (WTP) of hypothetical meat products packaged with nanosensors. WTP for these products was elicited both by means of a payment card and a stated choice experiment and estimated respectively with a Tobit regression and a scale adjusted latent class model. The survey was administered in the UK between February and March 2015 and 627 respondents in the UK took part in the study. Results show that risk overestimated attitude in risk markets is influenced by sociodemographic and economic characteristics of respondents. Psychological elements and subjective probability have also different impacts in the simulated market scenarios of risk and no risk In particular, WTP for meat packaged with nanosensors varies under different psychological reactions and subjective probability fits well the identification of latent classes and consumers' choices. Marketing and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Since 2003, the Indian State has introduced several high profile policy interventions to enhance food safety. Examples concern the Food Safety and Standards Act (July 2006) and a Supreme Court endorsed municipal policy to ban cooking food in Delhi's streets (May 2007). Relatively little is, however, known about either the proc~ss of policy change around food safety policy or the impacts of regulatory regimes on a rapidly proliferating informal food sector in Indian cities. This study thus examines local and national policy change regarding food safety and the informal food sector, and assesses implications for smallscale food retailers. The study investigates the suitability of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), an authoritative approach to analyse policy change in western democracies, for understanding Indian policy processes. The ACF posits that stakeholders influence policy by forming advocacy coalitions that coordinate action based on shared beliefs. Case studies are conducted of policymaking processes of the Government of India and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). The study thus investigates the Food Safety and Standards Act (2096), the National Urban Street Vending Policy (NSVP, 2004), and its implementation in the MCD. The thesis presents evidence that advocacy coalitions exist, and that their cognition of policy problems and solutions is influential in Indian policymaking processes, but argues that political and economic interests remain of analytical importance. The study further considers the role of policy implementation processes, to develop a critique of the ACF. It explores the ways in which policy practices, street level bureaucracies and political society intermediate policy outcomes for small-scale food retailers and connects official regulatory with parallel informal governance regimes. It concludes that Delhi's munidpal food hygiene regulations must be understood in conjunction with parallel processes governing access to public space.

Drawing on the theoretical framework of crisis communications, risk communications, and food choice literatures, this study explores the dynamics of food scare crises within an Irish context. The consumer reactions following these risk events present an opportunity to examine risk information processing within consumer behaviour. Utilising a realist research position, initial focus group research was conducted, which drove the main phase of the research, which consisted of in-depth consumer interviews. All of these interviews were transcribed and analysed using qualitative research software. Through this extensive exploratory research several key findings emerged which advance our understanding of crises and food scares. Risk profiles of Irish consumers were identified from their beliefs surrounding food category risk. Furthermore, an extensive risk information processing framework was identified, incorporating risk profiles, determinants of risk, and behavioural consequences. Food scares exhibited wave-like characteristics in which risk is amplified through an amalgam of factors, and then subsided to a natural state of equilibrium. The intensity of perceived risk is temporally linked, in that the level of perceived risk reaches its zenith in the immediate aftermath of public risk disclosure, which is intensified through greater media scrutiny and social discourse surrounding the food risk. Subsequently the level of perceived risk subsides amongst certain consumer populations due to lack of media and social discourse on the risk issue. In addition, key consumer expectations of crisis communication responses were identified, in terms of the form and content of the response. Moreover, the evidence indicated that exposure to past food crises created inoculation effects. Consumers perceived that industry stakeholders invoke proactive preventative measures to eliminate the potential for risk reoccurrence, by enhancing their safety systems, thereby reducing future risk potential. A key conclusion of the research is that organisations need to hetter understand the dynamics of food scares, so as to develop effective crisis communication responses, and long-term effective risk communications. As consumers are deluged with risk messages on a consistent basis, particularly concerning food consumption, organisations need a greater insight into how risk information processing occurs. The findings of the research help broaden our understanding of food scares, and have implications for the management of crisis events within other industries. They provide a critical insight into how these events are perceived, which have implications for marketing and management. Moreover it demonstrates that there are indeed opportunities from crises, to improve safety protocols to prevent reoccurrence, and to solidify bonds of trust with the consumer, through ongoing communications dialogue.

No description available.

This thesis reports on a case study of scientific and public aspects of the recent controversy over the possible health risks of mobile phones and their base stations. The research for this project involved 31 interviews with key actors (scientists, advisory scientists and representatives from interest groups and industry) and archive and documentary research. Using theoretical perspectives from Science and Technology Studies, I recount the move from a style of scientific advice in which non-experts were prevented from engaging with science to one in which their concerns and knowledge were ostensibly considered. These advisory discourses are described as constructing (and reconstructing) not only a level of scientific uncertainty, but also the limits of public engagement. In this way, scientific and-social orders are co-produced in the course of public science. 'Public concern' about mobile phones is revealed as a malleable, dynamic set of interests and actions. Experts, in taking public concern into account, reshape it, controlling areas of public engagement. As well as the narrative of changing scientific advice which prompts these insights, I consider the meanings attached to the term 'anecdotal evidence' as a site for the contesting of uncertainty and public concern.

The production and service of airlines meals is a “high-risk mass catering operation” with food safety implications, including temperature control during receiving/loading, storing and regeneration of meals, personal hygiene, cross-contamination, food allergy and poisoning. Food service is a crucial part of cabin crew on-board duties, therefore and according to the regulations, cabin crew should be educated/trained on food safety and hygiene. However, while a plethora of studies have been conducted on food handlers' food safety training in different sectors of the catering industry, to date; there is no in-depth study on cabin crew food safety training. Thus this study aimed to investigate cabin crew food safety training through the development of a conceptual framework to inform the study. Based on a mixed methods design and pragmatic worldview, this study employed a partially mixed methods sequential exploratory equal status typology. It involved two separate, but integrated strands. The first strand was qualitative based on a snowballing technique, in which a sample of 26 cabin crew training managers/supervisors participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews from 20 airlines worldwide. In addition, content analysis of documents, e.g., airlines' websites was conducted. The qualitative findings revealed that majority of airlines train cabin crew on food safety. However, training was not based on training needs analysis (TNA) and was not aligned with cabin crew roles and duties. Additionally, few airlines evaluated independently the reaction, knowledge, behaviours and results of their cabin crew food safety training. These findings informed the need for quantifying and generalising of cabin crew food safety issues, therefore an intermediate model was developed. The second strand was quantitative based on a random purposive sample of 307 cabin crew from the 20 airlines participated in the first strand. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used for measuring the relationships between six constructs of the intermediate model; (training, knowledge, attitudes, self-reported practices, barriers and training needs). The SEM findings revealed that food safety training affects positively and significantly the knowledge, attitudes and self-reported practices. Food training affects negatively and significantly the perceived training needs. However, there were significant differences between trained and untrained cabin crew. The findings also exposed the influence of barriers to food safety training and behaviours of both models; trained and untrained. This is the first study on cabin crew food safety training. It contributed to knowledge by providing two revised models which improve understanding of cabin crew food safety training which could inform the development of future cabin crew food safety training. Finally, this study developed a range of recommendations, limitations and future research opportunities.

Food safety has been recognised globally as a major problem, threatening consumer health and creating trade barriers across the global food web. The accurate identification and appropriate evaluation of emerging food safety risks are fundamental to effective food safety management though the complexity of these emerging risks will in all likelihood depend on a number of different factors and as such can be extremely difficult to predict. The overall aim of this thesis was to identify gaps in knowledge and skills from a legislative, scientific, industrial, and consumer perspective relative to the global drivers for food safety. This process included a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including literature reviews, interview, open ended surveys, on-line questionnaires, and [?] techniques. A thorough literature review was conducted at the beginning from which three key subject areas were chosen for the primary focus of investigation in the thesis these included pesticide legislation, nanotechnologies and food fraud.