Finnish Salmonella Control Program -- Efficiency and Viability in Food Safety Promotion

When joining the EU, Finland was granted a permission to run its own food safety policy concerning Salmonella. The policy is called Finnish Salmonella Control Program (FSCP) and it covers the main animal production lines: pork, beef, poultry, and also the products thereof e.g. meat and eggs. By committing to follow an EU Commission approved national program Finland received so called additional guarantees from the EU. These guarantees allow it to require respective salmonella protection levels from similar products imported to the country. In order to continue the program its economic efficiency has to be thoroughly evaluated. The objective of FCSP is that no more than 1% of the animals and meat should be contaminated with Salmonella at the national level. Respectively, at the abattoir or meat cutting plant level the goal is 5% . These quite strict objectives were reached well in 1995-2001. The industry is responsible for running the program in practice. National authorities have their emphasis in coordination, collecting of data and supervision. The costs of the program are almost fully carried by the industry. This paper evaluates the efficiency and viability of FSCP as a whole. It can be concluded, that money used running the program is well-spent: health benefits produced, estimated either using a cost-of-illness type of calculations or a willingness-to-pay measure from a consumer survey are many times larger than the costs of the program. In the end it can be concluded that FSCP is a good example of economically viable tool for sustaining public health.