U.S. Ranks Fourth in Food Safety

REGINA, Saskatchewan – The United States has been ranked in fourth place, tied with Canada for its food safety system. Denmark, Australia and Britain were rated as having the safest food systems, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international economic organization.

The OECD's Food Safety Performance World Ranking report rated both the U.S. and Canada as being “poor” in traceability, noting that the two countries do not have well-established farm-to-fork traceability systems for any food product. Italy, France and Ireland are at the bottom of the international rankings of 17 countries rated.

The ranking, first conducted in 2008, is a joint project of Sylvain Charlebois, associate director of the University of Regina's public policy graduate school, and Chris Yost, a biology professor and the Canada Research Chair in Microbes, the Environment and Food Safety. The 17 countries were assessed in four areas: consumer affairs, biosecurity and trades, governance and recalls, and traceability and management. The two professors came up with the study to benchmark Canada’s food safety performance in comparison to the other OECD members.