About

The FoodRisC (Food Risk Communication – Perceptions and communication of food risks/benefits across Europe) project, funded by the European Commission seeks to address challenges in food risk/benefit communications and provide policy makers, food authorities and others with practical guidance for targeting and tailoring coherent messages to the consumers.

Effective spread of food risk/benefit information will assist initiatives aimed at reducing the burden of food-related illness and disease, reducing the economic impact of food crises and ensuring that confidence in safe and nutritious food is fostered and maintained in Europe.

The main objectives of FoodRisC are to:

• Characterise key configurations of food risk/benefit relationships and the consequent implications for communicators.
• Make recommendations about the unique potential of new social media and provide practical guidance as to how risk communicators can best use these media for the communication of food risk and benefit.
• Characterise consumers and the ways in which consumers respond to information about food risk and benefit, taking into account gender and other relevant socio-demographics as well as important qualities of the information itself and the context in which it is given, e.g. the expression of uncertainty, existence of multiple information sources, contestation or conflict.
• Investigate and characterise the role of information seeking in relation to food risk and benefit.
• Characterise the potential use and role of deliberative engagement in food risk and benefit communication.
• Propose a strategy alongside the necessary tools for effective communication of coherent messages across the Member States, which could also support the implementation of EU policy initiatives.

These objectives will be achieved through a range of research approaches and methods and by extending the theoretical basis of how people acquire and use information in food domains.