What do food production and offshore oil and gas have in common? In both, we find production systems with limited data, uncertainties and unknown factors.

Though the hazards can be very different, in that in biological systems the hazards can grow, change or die, many of the methods developed through DNV’s offshore work can be adopted for risk assessment for the food industry and food authorities. Risk management and risk-based legislation are only now coming of age in food production, and are on a worldwide agenda including The European Food Safety Authority, and in OECD and WTO.

The goal for DNV is to expand our risk-assessment services to include biological systems. The first development project in this area looked at the food-poisoning bacteria Campylobacter, focusing on the link between retail chicken products and illness in consumers. The model was developed in cooperation with The Federal Institute of Risk Assessment (BfR) and was designed to include a number of important factors, such as family size, the effect of the kitchen hygiene routines of the cook, the contribution of cross contamination from hands and the environment as well as the contribution of undercooking, and exposure variations between the family members.

Developing these methods requires integrating risk assessment with biological competence to ensure mathematically robust models that are as biologically realistic and relevant as possible.
Risk assessments that include risk models can be used to determine the possible effects of importing food or the results of alternative mitigation strategies. The food industry can utilise risk based approaches to determine the most cost-efficient method of meeting both legislative and business goals.