Abstract:

Considering the frequent outbreaks of food safety scandals, co-regulation has been carried out in order to promote
food safety governance in China. The essence of the transformation from traditional regulation to co-regulation is that the
top-bottom management model turns into the regulation model combining top and bottom power, government and society.
Combining a literature review with case studies, this paper reviews the recent progress on co-regulation in Europe, analyzes
the roles of thee primary responsibility bodies-enterprises, government and the third party in food safety, discusses the
regulation mechanisms of media, non-governmental organizations and consumers, and highlights the importance of the third
party that can be regarded as the complement of the top-bottom regulation due to its bottom-up pressures.

Key words: food safety, co-regulation, self-regulation, the third party, bottom-up pressure