10/11/2026
Could sharing confidential food-safety data across companies help identify problems before they become larger events?
Researchers interviewed 27 U.S. food-industry executives, food-safety directors, and managers representing dairy, meat, produce, food manufacturing, and food-safety laboratory sectors to understand why companies remain hesitant to pool food-safety data.
Participants saw significant potential benefits. Larger shared datasets could help reveal trends that may be difficult for an individual company to detect, strengthen predictive models, and improve the ability to recognize rare or emerging food-safety risks earlier.
But significant barriers remain.
Participants raised concerns about losing control of confidential information, legal liability, regulatory scrutiny, reputational damage, and competitors potentially gaining an advantage from shared data.
Differences in terminology, recordkeeping, data formats, and digital infrastructure could also make company-to-company data sharing difficult.
The researchers found that trust and data governance may be as important as the technology itself. Participants suggested clearer rules around ownership, access, confidentiality, retention, and use of shared information, along with neutral third-party oversight, as possible ways to reduce those concerns.
The peer-reviewed study was published in npj Science of Food and was based on research involving Cornell University, UC Davis, and UC Berkeley.
Would your company share food-safety data if it could help identify emerging risks earlier?
Source: npj Science of Food; Cornell University; Food Safety Magazine Nature
