Indicators of emerging hazards and risks to food safety

There is a widely felt need to develop methods for the early identification of emerging hazards to food safety with the aim of preventing these hazards from becoming real risks and causing incidents. This paper reviews various activities and previous reports that describe methods to select indicators that can be used for the purpose of early identification of hazards. These indicators have been divided over three different environments, including (i) the environment surrounding food production, (ii) the food production chain from farm to fork, and (iii) consumers. Changes in these indicators are signals that may require follow-up action. Besides indicators that are linked to specific kinds of hazards, the indicators used for vulnerability assessment can help identifying weak spots in the food production system that are sensitive to a broader range of hazards. Based on the various indicators for emerging hazards that have thus been identified in literature, a set of generic indicators is provided that can be useful for the early identification of hazards. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved