The report was produced by The Conference Board of Canada’s centre for food in association with the University Of Guelph’s Food Institute.

It ranked 17 different countries using 10 different food safety performance indicators in three main areas:

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  • assessment

  • communication

  • management

    • The analysis looked at food borne illness rates, pesticide usage, national food consumption studies and total dietary studies for risk assessment. For risk communication they studied food allergies and public trust. As for risk management, the report examined food traceability, food recalls, food safety response capacity and also radionuclide standards.

    Other countries that the researchers examined were France, Norway, Britain, America, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

    The report found that:

  • All countries have very high food safety standards, but Canada and Ireland, in particular, earned excellent grades relative to their peers.

  • Agricultural pesticide use saw little chang in performance in 2010; however, Ireland improved its response while Belgium’s pesticide use performance worsened.

  • The strongest country performance across five food-borne illness categories included Ireland, Austria, Canada, France, Britain, America and Japan. Meanwhile Scandinavian countries and Germany showed the weakest performance.

  • Researchers also found that the public trust in food safety was highest in Ireland and Canada.

    • You can read the full Conference Board of Canada report here.