1. The challenges of assessing food safety culture
Rounaq Nayak and Patrick Waterson
Human Factors and Complex Systems Group,
Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University
The Piper Alpha disaster which killed 167 workers on 6 July 1988 off the coast of Aberdeen
is the world's worst ever oil rig accident. Lord Cullen’s subsequent inquiry report, published
in 1996, identified a wide range of factors contributing to the accident. Chief amongst these
were the relaxed attitudes of managers towards safety, lack of adequate training provision,
alongside a widespread ‘culture of complacency’. Piper Alpha accident certainly wasn’t a
‘one-off event’. During the 1980’s and 90’s a number of other high profile accidents
occurred. These included the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle (1986), the Ladbroke
Grove train accident (1996), the underground rail fire at Kings Cross (1987) and the
Chernobyl nuclear plant accident (1986). These and other large-scale accidents/disasters
resulted in widespread public debate about the most appropriate ways in which to manage
safety and the role of external bodies such as regulators within many of the safety critical
industries (e.g., aviation, nuclear power and rail transportation). What characterised much of
this work was the application of the systems approach to understanding the contributory
factors underlying accident causation. One of the most important elements of the systems
approach to risk and safety is the concept of ‘safety culture’ (sometimes also called ‘safety
climate’). The last few years have seen an explosion of interest in safety culture, partly given
over to exploring the meaning of the term, but also covering the assessment of safety culture
in a wide variety of industries and sectors including aviation, nuclear, rail and healthcare. In
this short article, we provide an overview of the more recent attempts to assess and improve
safety culture within the food industry.
Food safety and food-related infection outbreaks
Food safety experts have become interested in safety culture partly because of the occurrence
of two recent, high profile infection outbreaks. The E.coli O157 outbreak in Scotland in 1997
caused 496 cases, out of which 18 people died. This outbreak was followed by the 2005
E.coli O157 outbreak which caused the death of a five year old, alongside 157 other people
who recovered. Most of those infected were children who ate school meals supplied by Tudor

2. and Son, a catering butcher business. The two investigation reports authored by Professor
Hugh Pennington (sometimes referred to as Pennington 1 and Pennington 2), concluded that
the outbreaks had occurred as a result of combination of negligence on the part of food
suppliers towards food safety culture (e.g., inadequate documentation, lack of regard for
personal hygiene, etc.). Poor personal hygiene practices at the food suppliers led to cross-
contamination of their clothing and hence food products. The Food Standards Agency at the
time also underestimated various factors such as the importance of providing adequate
resources for tackling and preventing food safety outbreaks. These problems resulted in
inadequate training provision for Environmental Health Officers (EHO’s) and senior
managers. Lack of resources also contributed to poor morale amongst EHO’s and difficulties
in implementing guidelines and procedures for food safety. These and a range of other
systemic factors, led to cross-contamination of the meat supplied to schools and other outlets.
Food safety culture and its assessment
Currently, food safety is assessed in a number of ways by EHO’s and other groups; these
include using methods which draw on human factors knowledge and lessons learnt from
other industries. The Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) method for
example, build on human factors carried out in the chemical and process industries and is a
management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of
biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and
handling, to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product. Despite the
adoption of these types of methods, problems with food safety continue to occur on a regular
basis within the UK and elsewhere (e.g., the contamination of supermarket chickens with the
Campylobacter bug which occurred in 2014). Part of the problem relates to training
provision, particular as it applies to small businesses such as restaurants, cafes and
takeaways. The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) for example, estimated in 2013 that
63% of the small business operators admitted to not carrying out food safety behaviours.
Lack of compliance with regulations and guidelines is often seen as an indicator of a poor
safety culture amongst business and suppliers in the food sector. Methods for assessing food
safety culture are a more recent development and some tools are starting to be used within the
industry. Greenstreet Berman, in collaboration with the Food Standards Agency, for example,
has developed a toolkit which helps food inspectors assess levels of safety culture. Their food

3. safety culture diagnostic tool is for use primarily by local authority personnel undertaking
food hygiene inspections to identify aspects of good/poor food safety cultures in food
businesses and as a framework/device to influence business culture. The toolkit supports
inspectors by providing them with a means to categorise the food safety culture of the
business, as well as selecting advice on how to improve food safety culture. A small-scale
evaluation of the toolkit was carried out by an undergraduate student (Charlotte Morrison) at
Loughborough University in 2014. Charlotte asked EHO’s about their attitudes towards food
safety culture, as their views on the usability, validity and reliability of the toolkit. Her
findings were broadly positive and supported the view that there is widespread enthusiasm
for the notion of assessing food safety culture. The toolkit was also perceived as reliable,
valid and quite easy to use. The biggest concern was the anticipated amount of time required
to carry out the assessment during inspections. Within the Human Factors and Complex
Systems group at Loughborough we are planning a larger-scale and more systematic
evaluation of the toolkit. Part of this will involve qualitative and quantitative analysis of food
safety culture in small-scale food businesses within the East Midlands.
Food safety culture – some future challenges
The lesson from other industries is that safety culture is often difficult to assess. Part of the
problem is that what constitutes safe behaviour is very much a matter of interpretation.
Within healthcare for example, perceptions of patient safety vary a great deal according to
organisational role and professional background (e.g., doctors and nurses attitudes towards
safe care). Likewise, many questions have been raised about the psychometric properties of
safety culture instruments and the relationship between what the instrument purports to
measure and data covering, for example, rates of harm, unsafe behaviour or injuries. Many of
these concerns may well apply to food safety culture. In our future work we intend to probe
deeper into these and a number of other questions centred on the concept of safety culture
within the food industry. More specifically, a better understanding of the attitudes of the
employees and management in the food industry towards safety is needed alongside a better
appreciation of the tools and methods they currently use to assess food hygiene and safety.