Food Safety

  • Consumers
    ERS researchers study how consumers react to food safety incidents, both domestically and globally, such as outbreaks and recalls. Additionally, ERS is a national leader in providing the costs of illness for select foodborne pathogens.
  • Markets, Regulation, and Policy
    USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) examines how private markets and government regulation have combined to maintain meat, poultry, and produce food safety. This research covers regulations that establish a minimum level of food safety quality. USDA, ERS research includes estimates of the costs of regulation and assessments of private market mechanisms and innovations affecting food safety in produce, meat, and poultry food safety.