Author: Jason Barnes
Barnes, Jason, 2025 Food safety inspection: A treatise, Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering
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Globally, foodborne illness results in significant harms to public health. Food safety inspections are a health protection measure employed by governments worldwide to reduce the impact of foodborne illness. The food safety regulatory workforce responsible for undertaking inspections is largely comprised of Environmental Health Practitioners (EHPs). When undertaking food safety inspections, EHPs seek to assess the practices and conditions at food businesses to determine food safety risk by using mostly observational techniques. Despite the prevalent application of food safety inspections in the regulation of food businesses, there are significant gaps in the understanding of food safety inspection practices. Primarily, these include lack of:
a. a definition of food safety inspection,
b. a detailed description of how food safety inspections are performed,
c. evidence on the propensity for food safety inspections to act as an effective health protection measure,
d. evidence-informed guidance available to practitioners on how to perform food safety inspections.
The aim of the research was to bridge these gaps in understanding of food safety inspection practices, to generate a sound evidence-base to inform practice and to illuminate a path for further research.
In order to achieve this aim the research began by seeking to answers the following questions:
1. What are the meanings attributed to food safety inspection by society?
2. What is the influence of values, constructs and meanings in how food safety inspection is realized, shaped and rationalized?
In doing so, 18 meanings attributed by inspectors, food business associates and consumers to food safety inspection were identified and applied to critically examine two key criticisms of food safety inspection. This generated a need to answer further questions about how food safety inspections are currently performed, namely:
3. What are the current approaches to performing food safety inspections?
Following this line of investigation, a common approach to performing food safety inspections was identified across five countries. This resulted in further questions arising, including:
4. Is the common approach to food safety inspection an effective health protection measure?
While the common approach was found to comprise beneficial aspects, three limitations were identified, including:
a) Comprehensiveness - determinations of risk were being made with insufficient evidence;
b) Coherence - evidence was being mismatched with its meaning;
c) Bias - insufficient steps were being taken to attend to bias.
These limitations stand to inhibit the effectiveness of the common approach to inspection as an effective health protection measure. In response, a best practice inspection model (hereafter called the Barnes model) was developed to address these limitations. This generated further questions for investigation:
5. Is the proposed best practice Barnes model functional, practicable and applicable for use in food safety regulatory practice?
6. What are the barriers to implementing the Barnes model for food safety inspection?
Field trials demonstrated the proposed inspection model to be efficacious and practicable for use in practice, although three barriers may hinder comprehensive implementation. Through legislative reform and commitment by regulators to transition toward evidence-informed practice, as encompassed by the Barnes model, food safety inspection can be strengthened as a health protection measure and better protect public health from the harms of foodborne illness.
Keywords: food safety, inspection, environmental health, health protection, regulation, risk assessment, regulatory practice, public health, food control
Subject: Environmental Health thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2025
School: College of Science and Engineering
Supervisor: Professor Kirstin Ross