Growing Food Safety from the Bottom Up

The overall burden of foodborne illness is unknown, in part because of under-reporting and limited surveillance. Although the morbidity associated with foodborne illness is lower than ever, public risk perception and an increasingly complex food supply chain contribute to uncertainty in the food system. This paper presents an agent-based model of a simple food safety system involving consumers, inspectors and stores, and investigates the effect of three different inspection scenarios incorporating access to information. The increasing complexity of the food supply chain and agent-based modeling as an appropriate method for this line of investigation from a policy perspective are discussed.