Industry bears the primary responsibility for implementing safety standards and must invest the resources such as staff time, systems, training and equipment required to put the standards into practice. Ultimately, consumers will pay the costs for food safety standards both through taxes to pay for the government control authorities' activities and through food prices, which must reflect all the costs of production, including the cost of quality assurance. Control of food safety and quality encompasses a broad number of factors, and governments must carefully select the areas in which they will set standards. In particular, quality includes attributes of food that are market concerns rather than public health matters. Governments should focus their attention and resources on the public health aspects of quality and on those market-related aspects of quality and labelling that will protect consumers against fraud and misleading claims.
Governments have three additional responsibilities related to the establishment of food controls.
First, they should conduct research into testing and evaluation methods for determining the safety of food ingredients and processes. Governments need to have a good research base because food controls should only be imposed on a sound scientific basis. Second, governments need to audit industry performance to ensure that companies are complying with standards and that standards are being uniformly applied. This involves training inspection personnel so that they have a good understanding of the technologies and processes involved, as well as conducting inspections in an even-handed and fair manner. Third, governments must communicate with industry and consumers about food controls.