A novel approach to identify critical knowledge gaps for food safety in circular food systems

Abstract

The transition from linear production towards a circular agro-food system is an important step towards increasing Europe's sustainability. This requires re-designing the food production systems, which inevitably comes with challenges as regards controlling the safety of our food, animals and the ecosystem. Where in current food production systems many food safety hazards are understood and well-managed, it is anticipated that with the transition towards circular food production systems, known hazards may re-emerge and new hazards will appear or accumulate, leading to new -and less understood- food safety risks. In this perspective paper, we present a simple, yet effective approach, to identify knowledge gaps with regard to food safety in the transition to a circular food system. An approach with five questions is proposed, derived from current food safety management approaches like HACCP. Applying this to two cases shows that risk assessment and management should emphasize more on the exposure to unexpected (with regards to its nature and its origin) hazards, as hazards might circulate and accumulate in the food production system. Five knowledge gaps became apparent: there's a need for (1) risk assessment and management to focus more on unknown hazards and mixtures of hazards, (2) more data on the occurrence of hazards in by-products, (3) better understanding the fate of hazards in the circular food production system, (4) the development of models to adequately perform risk assessments for a broad range of hazards and (5) new ways of valorization of co-products in which a safe-by-design approach should be adopted.

Fig. 1. Five-step approach for safety assessment in a circular food production system.

1: Input—determine which (waste) material or co-product is used in the circular food production system. 2: Hazards—identify the hazards that occur in the circular food production system. 3: Fate—determine how do these hazards move through the circular food production system. 4: Risks—determine the risks of these hazards in the circular food production system. 5: Acceptability—determine if the risk is acceptable or if risk management measures need to be taken. Copyright Bureau voor Beeldzaken, 2022.

Fig. 2. The knowns and unknowns: where hazards can show up expectedly and unexpectedly.

Top-left: known hazards show up in known food/feed production situations; top-right: in known food/feed production situations previously unknown hazards show up; bottom-left: in previously unknown food/feed production situations known hazards show up; bottom-right: in previously unknown food/feed production situations previously unknown hazards show up. See text for explanation and examples.