Portfolio of interventions to mature human organizational dimensions of food safety culture in food businesses

Consensus among academic scholars and practitioners has grown on the principle that established food safety management systems (to control and assure food safety in food businesses) need to be complemented by human components, to develop, nurture and shape a mature food safety culture. This study explores how food safety culture, focused on human organizational elements, can be matured by dedicated interventions. A database of potential intervention strategies was set up through literature reviews. The literature-based database of interventions was enriched with practitioners’ insights, through a modified Delphi study with a panel of food safety experts active in the food industry. Combining results, a portfolio is presented consisting of 68 unique and science-based food safety culture interventions. These are ranked by stakeholders based on their perceived effectiveness to improve food safety culture, reported with their most relevant barriers of success, and extra comments concerning their implementation or concept. With this approach, the topic of food safety culture improvement is elucidated through the proposition of tangible and science-based, yet practical and industry oriented, intervention strategies for maturation.