Across Europe there are forces at play, set to cause a revolution in the way food hygiene standards may be enforced in the future.

The first is coming from the European Commission. New food safety regulations coming into force over the next few years are aimed at providing greater transparency throughout the food chain. Europe's consumers also want to know more about the way their food is produced, delivered and served up to them. Concerns around GM, doctored foods, BSE, pesticide usage and meat crime have galvanised consumers into making their own demands. There is also a general call for greater freedom of information across a whole range of issues, including food safety.

At last week's meeting of the Europe-wide forum of Food Law Enforcement Practitioners (Flep) in Malta, it was agreed that these forces, are in part, manifesting themselves in a call for the publishing of food hygiene standards in food outlets, or scores on doors.

In our news pages this month we learn the CIEH is looking at lobbying for change in the UK. David Clapham, in this issue's opinion piece on page 346, looks at America and argues that we should take note of the dramatic improvements in hygiene standards in New York and Los Angeles since the introduction of scores on doors.

In Europe, only the Danes have taken the plunge by introducing the "smiley" scheme and early signs are that hygiene standards are rising here too. Four different smiley faces displayed in food outlets tell customers what to expect inside. A website also allows customers to access the full inspection report, where the outlet owner is allowed to comment on the score. Forty per cent of Danish customers say they would only go to hygienic premises and anyone not displaying a score is fined £180. Belgium is looking to introduce something similar from 2005, and consumer pressure is growing in the Netherlands for the introduction of such a scheme.

Scores on doors appear to incentivise food outlets to improve standards. But there is another, perhaps more important advantage to such a scheme. Because hygiene scores will create a need for more consistent inspections, the enforcement community will benefit by acquiring comparable data on food outlets across the country. In the Netherlands, an evidence base is being built alerting enforcers to regional differences in food hygiene standards, along with the effectiveness of different enforcement techniques. Enforcers may soon be able to see whether education is better than prosecution, and whether short frequent inspections work better than long infrequent visits. The pilot study even allows regional data to be broken down by type of food outlet.

It is in the creation of this, much needed, evidence base that the real revolution in food safety is set to take place.

Stuart Spear
Editor