Ranking food products based on estimating and combining their microbiological, chemical and nutritional risks: Method and application to Ready-To-Eat dishes sold in France

Microbiological (M), chemical (C), and nutritional (N) risks associated with food products are usually assessed and managed independently by experts in public services or food companies. This can render difficult the comparison of food products in term of overall risk for the consumer. The objective of this study was to suggest a relatively simple method to (i) classify food products based on their M, C and N risks, and (ii) aggregate these risks and rank the food products accordingly. The method was developed and applied to 17 ready-to-eat (RTE) dishes available on the French market. With regard to food safety, the individual M and C risks were charac-terized considering likelihood and severity as recommended by the Codex Alimentarius. With regard to nutri-tion/health, the N risk was estimated based on the tendency of the dish to contribute to nutrient adequacy and to a healthy eating pattern. Finally, the outranking method PROMETHEE was applied to aggregate the three M, C, N risks and rank the food dishes. Food products were ranked relatively to each other, not in absolute terms. When we attributed the same weight to M, C and N risks, the RTE dish "Duck Parmentier" had the highest risk score while "Papillote of chicken, potatoes and small vegetables" and "Vegetarian plate vegetables and quinoa" had the lowest. However, this overall ranking changed according to the weight assigned to individual M, C and N risks, at least for food products whose scores varied according to risk types, such as"sushi discovery" (high M and C risks, low N risk). Since the risk ranking method developed here was built with assumptions and hypotheses related to the specific case study, more applications are needed to assess whether it can be generic. Nevertheless, this method is well grounded, objective, transparent, relatively fast and easy to set up. It might lead to further development of decision tools, particularly for consumers. This study paves the way towards food product multi -risk ranking.