Neogen® Risk-Based Food Safety Handbook

From Reactive Testing to Proactive Food Safety 

Food safety isn't just about finding problems. It's about understanding where risks are most likely to occur and taking action before they impact your product. 

Written in partnership with Dr. Fernando Sampedro of the University of Minnesota, , whose research, teaching, and international consulting work focuses on food safety risk analysis across the food supply chain, the Risk-Based Food Safety Handbook helps food safety teams take a deeper, more structured approach to risk, from understanding which questions to ask to building a program that reflects the needs of their specific operation. 

The handbook provides practical guidance and tools to help food safety professionals identify and assess potential hazards, prioritize areas of greater risk, develop more purposeful sampling strategies, and make more informed decisions across their food safety programs.

Inside, You’ll Learn: 

• Foundations of risk analysis, including how likelihood and severity can help determine which hazards require greater attention. 
• Food sampling principles and the limitations of relying solely on finished-product testing. 
• Microbial risk assessment and pathogen testing, including risk-based approaches to sampling for foodborne pathogens such as Listeria. 
• Environmental monitoring strategies for prioritizing sampling locations based on risk. 
• Allergen and mycotoxin risk assessment and approaches for developing risk-based sampling strategies. 
• The cost of poor quality and how a preventive approach can help reduce food safety and operational risk.  
  
  

Practical Tools You Can Put to Work 

Go beyond theory with case studies, activities, and worksheets designed to help your team apply risk-based principles within your own facility. Explore exercises for evaluating sampling plans, identifying potential hazards, prioritizing environmental sampling sites, and developing risk-based approaches to food safety.