Chinese Food Safety Crisis Management

Food， with its essential character to human beings，food safe must be one among the mostconcerns in our society. Lots of food borne outbreaks and scandals reported in recent years，including melamine added infant formula，Sudan red in KFC，Nestlémilk powder with excessiveiodine，Haagen-Dazs―black workshop‖and so on，have caused tremendous doubt and reflectionon our food safety management mechanism，within which long-term regulatory functions ofrelevant departments，situation assessment and emergency response capability， media monitoringand control，investigation，popularizing food safety knowledge among common people，adaptability to international food safety standards，communication and many other cross-cuttingissues are involved. The objective of this research is to explore how to improve our food safetycrisis management.From the perspective of social administration，with―food safety‖and―crisis management‖asstarting points and introducing crisis management in management field to a long-term regulationand emergence response in food safety field， in this study， I used literature research， analyticalinduction，case study，expert consultation and field survey and so on to detect our deficiencies infood safety crisis management，and systematically analyzed food safety related cases home andabroad，then put forward some solutions and suggestions，with the hope to further improve ourfood safety crisis management.The first two parts of this article are to define related concepts，introducing crisis managementtheories and how to apply these theories to food safety crisis management. Conclusions drawnfrom studying our food safety crisis management status quo are as below：a crisis response systemfrom national to local levels has basically formed，including major food safety emergencyheadquarters from nation to local wide，daily management institutions and experts AdvisoryCommittee，but our segmented regulation pattern may still offset these efforts. China has initiallyformed emergency reporting and information disclosure systems，but has not yet formed anindependent investigation mechanism or forecasting and early warning mechanism，plus，emergency plans need to be more operable and pragmatic. Legislation and law enforcement arebeing improved gradually，but food safety standards and food safety testing need strengthening，together with prevention and tracing technology; risk communication gains more and moreattention though，still remains a weak point. The third part is to review and analyze domestic case study of Sanlu milk powder scandal andturbot fish event. Sanlu milk powder scandal exposed absent governmental regulation，scatteredand uncoordinated regulators and poor inspection and quality standards system. The success ofturbot event highlights the importance of risk analysis. It tells that food safety assessment must bescientific and risk management decisions，while making，must give full consideration to our socialand national conditions，risk communication channels should be unified，content easy tounderstand.The fourth part is about food safety management in United States. The U.S. food safetymanagement system is based on a robust and flexible federal and local legal system and highlyindustrial discipline. Federal，state and local departments complement each other; co-manage foodsafety in the United States，with open and transparent information，clear and full accountability，risk-based food safety analytical methods and early warning system，efficient food safetymonitoring systems，orderly food borne outbreak investigation system as well as food recallsystem. To better deal with the emerging challenges in the field of food safety，the United Statesalso makes significant change of its food safety regulatory system，including enacting Food andDrug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act，initiating Federal Food Safety WorkingGroup as coordination centre responsible directly to the President.The fifth section reviews "the tainted spinach events" and "Salmonella contaminated peanutbutter event‖in the US. In dealing with the poisoned spinach，the US set us a good example of itsemergency early warning mechanism characterized by unified management，territorial-based andhierarchical response， meanwhile provides us reference of reducing food safety risks andeffectively responding to food safety crises， including regulating production standards，encouraging regional marketing agreement，enhancing the study of food safety standards，improving traceability system， well monitoring and control the mass media. Salmonellacontamination peanut butter event，on the other hand，highlights the importance of a strict foodrecall system and food production safety management.The last part presents some suggestions to improve China’s food safety crisis managementsystem. First of all，overall leadership in food safety coordination should be strengthened;non-governmental organizations should play a more important role. Second，early crisis warningmechanism should be built through diverse channels（including real-time monitoring of domesticand foreign media，researching professional literature，detecting the potential risk in advance，analyzing historical data of early warning system，identifying risk variation，information sharingamong different regulators，introducing third-party accreditation，risk sourcing from lists of restricted import， improving reward systems，etc.）; the quality of practitioners need to beimproved， morally and technologically; establish post evaluation mechanism; play the role offood safety expert database in a real sense. Finally，strengthen risk communication skills; establisha unified nationwide food certification traceability system covering the whole process from farm totable; strict punitive system a sounding food recall system and relevant operating system.