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Food Safety Issues In Australia

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This project is all about analysing the issue of food safety as prevalent across Australia and thereby finding the root causes of the problem so that better measures can be advanced in efficiently dealing with it. The project therefore focuses on the problem of food safety issues which has been the root cause of foodborne illnesses and the researcher seeks to solve the issue of food safety by way of collecting data through performing literature search and also by way of conducting surveys with the customers to analyse their viewpoints about dealing with such food safety issues.

This project is focused towards analysing the important ways in which food safety issues in Australia can be managed in a proper manner. The safety issues with food products are not only a major problem across Australia, but it is evident in respect to all the major parts of the worlds. There is a growing trend among people to spend on food items outside their home, and this has given rise to the concept of ready- to-eat meal concepts, junk food or home replacement meals. This has resulted into challenges in relation to food safety risks and ultimately, the cases of people suffering from foodborne illnesses are on the rise (Rowell, Binkley, Alvarado, Thompson and Burris, 2013). This necessitates the need for effective food regulation mechanism and various other actions in order to deal with the issue of food safety.

Background

The specific attention is given to the food safety aspect in this project in the context of Australia, as an analysis of the existing literature suggests that the concern of food safety is a major problem in Australia, and there is a rise in the percentage of people suffering from illness as a result of consuming non-hygienic foods.  As indicated by Smith and Riethmuller (2000), the food safety issues are mainly in the form of bacteriological contamination, food irradiation, chemical residues and the use of antibiotics. These factors pose significant level of risks to the community in terms of their health performance, and thereby necessitate stronger policies in order to deal with these issues. As cited in the paper of Smith and Riethmuller (2000), Riethmuller and Morrison (1995) have indicated the major reasons for food safety issues. These are mainly the increased level of food consumption by people outside their home, supermarkets providing elaborated transformed food products in terms of ready to eat meals.

As indicated by Taylor, Coveney, Ward, Grande, Mamerow, Henderson and Meyer (2012), there is a rise in the level of food safety issues in the recent years across the world because of increasing population seeking to have their meals outside their home. Consumer expects good quality of foods, but the lack of appropriate hygienic measures on the part of food service providers has contributed towards the rising cases of foodborne illnesses across Australia. A study by Martin et al (2003) indicates that despite having a national food safety regulatory system in Australia, there is numerous concerns in relation to food safety issues as faced across the country. Such national food regulatory system is aimed at reducing inconsistencies and inefficiencies with state legislation, reducing the cost of food regulation and foodborne illness. The existing requirements look ineffective in terms of reducing the growing burden of foodborne illness as identified in the study.

This ultimately necessitates the need for proactive measures that can be applied in order to deal efficiently with the food safety issues across Australia and as such, this research seeks to analyse the ways in which the rising threats of food safety and ultimately illness among the consumers can be reduced.

Methodology

In performing this project, the methodology that will be followed, will be an analysis of the findings of past researchers regarding the measures in dealing with the food safety issues and a survey with the customers that have a regular habit of eating outside their home. The existing literature lists down important initiatives that are required in order to deal with the problem of food safety issues, and a review of their findings would form a basis in the given project in reaching appropriate conclusion. Apart from this, the survey will be carried out with the customers that have a regular habit of eating outside and it will be performed through a structured questionnaire that will comprise of the questions assessing the customer experience from eating outside and their perception about various important initiatives in dealing with the issue of food safety in a positive manner. An attempt will be made to identify the customer’s perception regarding the causes of food illness faced by them from eating outside so that better policies and procedures needed to deal with the problem can be identified. The need for an appropriate food safety regulation, ways of motivating food providers to adopt hygienic processes and various other food safety initiatives essential to reduce the illness will be assessed through designing questions accordingly (Goddard and Melville, 2004).

In these ways, the important initiatives needed to deal with the food safety issues will be identified and better control over such issue can be ensured.

Timeline

The project will be carried out in a specific timeline and each major section of the project will be performed within the designated timeline as indicated below:

Project Activities Time Needed
Setting background and devising aims and objectives of the project 3 weeks
Performing literature search 5 weeks
Designing methodology and performing data collection 4 weeks
Analysing collected data 3 weeks
Setting conclusion and recommendations 2 weeks
Analysis

The collected data needs to be analysed in order to reach an appropriate conclusion and the analysis will be performed by way of comparing the data collected from literature search and the data collected through survey. The comparison would allow for the identification of important measures needed in order to control the issue of food safety and thereby, better solution to the problem can be reached.

Conclusion

The entire project therefore tries to show that the problem of food safety is a severe problem and there is a need for effective measures in order to solve such problem. The project aims at identifying the necessary measures that are needed to adopt in order to efficiently deal with the problem of illness as faced from inappropriate food safety mechanism followed by the food service provider.

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