Dear Colleagues, 

During the last ten to twenty years, the concept of risk analysis has played a central role in the handling of Food Safety by decision makers. The Codex Alimentarius Commission has provided guidance to national governments on risk assessment, risk management and risk communication with regard to food related risks to human health. Risk assessment incorporates the four steps of hazard identification, hazard characterization, exposure assessment and risk characterization and to the extent possible, it should use quantitative information. Often the possibilities for performing quantitative risk assessments are hampered by constrains in data availability, time and other resources and qualitative information are therefore often used. Whether qualitative or quantitative and whether covering all four steps of risk assessment or only some of them it is important that the assessments also provide information of the uncertainties around the assessment. This is still challenging for both risk assessors and risk managers but is important to ensure transparency in the process and to ensure proper separation of risk assessment and risk management. The present special issue aims to provide examples of different risk assessments, risk assessments methodologies and usefulness for decision makers related to microbial, chemical and nutritional risk including risks related to specific and or novel foods. 

Dr. Birgit Nørrung
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Food safety
• Risk assessment