Setting the standards in health of what we eat

Unlike bigger businesses in the manufacturing sector, which can be regulated in a scientific way using legislation, smaller businesses in catering can be influenced by factors in the preparation of food, particularly in terms of customer preferences.

Therefore regulations must take into account these varying factors when supervising the catering sector businesses, she says.

"In the past, we told restaurants to follow food safety standards in a scientific way. For example, we told them to write down things, such as cooking temperatures, but in reality they don't have time. So they may not do it or, at the end of the day, just put down what they think happened," she says.

A few years ago, Morris' team worked with the government to help make the regulations more practical for smaller businesses to follow.

Instead of asking them to cook food at an exact temperature, they may estimate the temperature by making sure that liquids are boiling or by checking the center of poultry meat to make sure it is fully cooked - it must not be pink or red, she says.

However, Morris admits that even the UK's food safety monitoring is not perfect, as shown by the recent horse-meat scandal. Morris says the scandal alerted the UK's food safety regulators on the need to check supply chains more closely, because the meat found with horse DNA was imported from other European countries through a very complicated supply network.

She says that because China is a large country with a wide food supply chain across different parts of the country, it could potentially learn from Europe to increase transparency and traceability by sharing information across different provinces or cities.

Morris says the institute looks forward to working more closely with China, with the organization now setting up a consultancy arm that can advise businesses on food safety and management issues.

"China is a very important market for us. We can't tell China what to do because everything needs to be adapted to local circumstances, but we do have lots of experiences that we are keen to share with China."