ABSTRACT

Principles ..................................................................................... 127 6.3 Further Understanding The Risk of Legal Liability:

More Real-Life Case Studies ....................................................... 146 6.4 Conclusion ................................................................................... 151 Keywords .............................................................................................. 152

6.1 INTRODUCTION

For as long as there has been the exchange of food among people, whether by barter or sale, there have been concerns about the quality and safety of the food exchanged. Some of the earliest laws on record involve food, including laws that empowered supervisors to patrol markets to prohibit the sale of adulterated goods, and laws like the 1202 Assize of Bread, which required that a loaf be sold for a fair price and accurate weight, with violators subject to being “drawn upon a hurdle…through the greatest of streets, where the most people are assembled, and through streets which are most dirty, the false loaf hanging from his neck.”1 It can therefore be said that food was one of the earliest subjects of legal regulation, because it was a subject of concern for the poor and powerful alike. When it comes to adulterated food, deadly pathogens do not discriminate in terms of who is injured or killed.