The growing halal food sector in America has garnered attention recently in a number of ways regarding changing consumer demands, production yield, and certification standards. Muslim consumers choosing halal food products today combine more objective knowledge about halal food products - learned from jurists, imams, the Qur’an, ḥadīth, and family traditions - with more subjective knowledge about what they want from their food. The resultant mix of objective and subjective information about halal food production standards creates a unique milieu termed, in this thesis, the contemporary consumption context. The small variances between what different Muslim consumers want out of their halal food – particularly in terms of ethical and humane animal treatment – introduce tiny iterations to the timeless religious ritual that halal food consumption and ẓabīḥa, or ritual, slaughter entail. / text

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) represents a major change to U.S. food policy. Because several FSMA rules require that covered businesses comply with standards by 2019 at the latest, the legislation is expected to have considerable effects on the U.S. food system in the near future. This research examines potential challenges associated with two different FSMA rules. The first essay uses farm-level data from the 2012 Census of Agriculture to estimate the number of farms and acres covered by the FSMA Final Rule on Produce Safety in the California, the Northeast, and the entire U.S. Industry information and interviews with stakeholders are assessed in conjunction with the Census data to hypothesize how farms in two distinct U.S. production regions, California and the Northeast, will fare under the rule. For the second essay, we developed unique datasets containing information on 425 food certification standards and 581 certification bodies. The certification data is used to develop a descriptive analysis of patterns in the international food certification industry. We show how offices of certification bodies that offer food safety certification services are distributed geographically, which serves as a basis for assessing international auditing capacity under the FSMA Final Rule on Accredited Third-Party Certification.

The Food Safety and Quality Control System in Czech RepublicThe thesis describes the way how is the food safety control and quality protection provided in Czech republic. There is the law definition of the all forms of food during the food production chain from the primary production up to sale to the consumer in the work. The thesis focuses on the requirements laid down in the Czech and European food law on the food producers and sellers. The thesis also deals with the food contamination and quality aspects - nutrition value and quality branding. There is also chapter about the quality management system certification and chapter about the current cases related with the safe food area in the Czech republic in 2012 (Methanol, Polish technical salt and horse lasagne).

La produzione di carne è disciplinata dai diritti ebraico ed islamico attraverso normative che, a prescindere dalle loro rispettive specificità, sono accomunate dallo scopo fondamentale di rammentare ai fedeli la gravità dell’atto di privare un animale della vita. La produzione di carni kashèr (idonee ad essere consumate, in base al diritto ebraico) e halal (lecite, ai sensi di quello islamico) trova generalmente spazio nelle democrazie pluraliste in virtù del diritto alla libertà religiosa. Questo, ad ogni modo, non esime lo Stato dalla responsabilità di disciplinare la macellazione e l’uso commerciale delle indicazioni di qualità kashèr e halal, in ragione ed entro i limiti dei propri compiti di tutela della salute umana ed animale, della concorrenza e dei consumatori. Assolvere questa responsabilità nel rispetto della reciproca autonomia tra Stato e confessioni religiose implica la ricerca di un equilibrio complesso, soprattutto quando si tratta di individuare e delimitare le competenze dei poteri pubblici, degli enti confessionali e del settore privato in materia di macellazione rituale e di certificazione religiosa delle carni. La tesi analizza e mette a confronto le soluzioni normative adottate in due ordinamenti (quello francese e quello statunitense) ispirati al principio di separazione dello Stato dalle religioni, seppur con declinazioni molto differenti. / Meat production is regulated by both Jewish and Islamic Laws through sets of rules that, aside from their respective specificities, share the aim of teaching reverence for life to the believers. Generally speaking, in pluralist democracies the production of kosher (“fit/proper”, according to Jewish Law) and halal (“permissible”, under Islamic Law) meat is protected under the right to freedom of religion. However, the State retains the authority to regulate the use of religious slaughter and that of kosher and halal claims in the meat market, on the basis and within the limits of its mandate to protect and promote public health, humane treatment of animals, fair market competition and consumer rights. Fulfilling such responsibility without overstepping the bounds of State-religion mutual autonomy is a complex task, especially when it comes to determining the roles of public authorities, religious bodies and the private sector in the fields of ritual slaughter and religious certification; it requires, indeed, to strike a fair balance between several - sometimes competing - rights and interests. The dissertation analyses and compares the legal approaches through which these matters are addressed in France and in the US, where the general principle of separation between Church and State is construed and implemented in profoundly different ways.