Professor Carol Wallace

Selected research projects include:

Evaluating and Predicting Maturity of Food Safety Culture in Food Manufacturing (Collaboration with University of Guelph, Canada and Cultivate) Building on existing research in the field of organizational culture, food science, and social cognitive science, this research developed and tested a food safety culture measurement system, validating the approach across a range of global manufacturing companies through method triangulation and developed dimensions of food safety culture now adopted by the Global Food Safety Initiative. Moving forward, this research has allowed development Food Safety Culture Networks such as the Salus Food Safety Culture Science Group and to bring together academic, business and governance actors to bid for collaboration funding to answer key research questions.

Recent publications consider the route to financial gain via strengthening food safety culture and defining terminology for enhanced understanding of food safety culture and ongoing research is investigating the roles of subcultures within food safety culture. Causes and risk factors in food outbreaks and incidents Aiming to explore potential for a predictive analytics system in order to predict trends towards incidents requires the identification of common contributory factors in food manufacturing incidents leading to potentially serious food safety incidents (e.g. product withdrawals and recalls, food poisoning incidents and legal offences), and to near misses. This study involved a systematic search and review of published food safety incidents and recalls, identifying where possible the contributory and root causes of incidents. This provided key insights into global food safety incidents according to food and drink categories, hazards and common contributory factors. Findings highlight the lack of good quality data on root causes of food incidents and the importance of examining a range of incidents in depth from a qualitative perspective to try to close this data gap.

First phase of research funded by BRC GS and results published in Trends in Food Science and Technology. Preventing Foodborne Disease in Babies and Young Children in Pakistan A GCRF-funded project aiming to identify approaches to reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases in infants via interventions in practices for preparation, handling, storage and feeding of complementary foods in the home. Food Safety Culture for Business Performance (UCLan-Cultivate) This Knowledge Exchange/Partner funded project provides a university-industry collaborative platform that allows businesses to access support for food safety culture improvement, which has been shown to link directly to business improvement and financial gain.

Using the academic expertise of the University of Central Lancashire and industry/culture measurement expertise of Cultivate, the collaboration will provide knowledge transfer and improvement opportunities for industry and research partnership prospects in the field of culture enabled food safety and quality performance PhD and Professional Doctorate research: 

• Strategies to assist in the application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) Principle 1 in High Care food manufacturing operations
• Evaluation, development and implementation of food safety management, culture and climate in small food businesses in Mauritius and Rodrigues 
• Food fraud in the fresh produce sector: the impact of preventative tools and the business costs of fraud prevention 
• Bottom up- An empirical investigation of food safety culture in food manufacturing operations 
• Achieving sustainable food security in times of economic recession in South-Eastern Nigeria 
• Use of iodised salt in food manufacturing to improve iodine status in the UK