Abstract: Growing importance has been attached to the function of food risk communication in various countries in the world. Inefficient food safety risk communication not only could not help the public out with any queries, but also deteriorate the public trust towards the government, industries and even experts in the long term. The work of food risk communication has just started in China. How to establish an efficient food risk communication mechanism has become a key issue to be solved urgently for helping the public understand food risks, improving the credibility of food safety supervision, ensuring the long-term healthy development of food industry and even maintaining social stability. In this paper, we make a review on theoretical studies of the functional evaluation of food risk communication as well as the potential suggestions and guidelines from the practical experiences of other countries to food risk communication in China.

Key words: risk communication, food safety, impact assessment, international suggestions