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I can see a world where there's a private alternative to the FDA going around and certifying that food is safe for consumption. I just know that the world before the FDA didn't have one, and the FDA works well enough that I'm not willing to find out. I think this has a lot of parallels to software - if it ain't broke don't fix it.

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And that organization would be bought off by Big Food quickly

That is a really good point, what would be the business model of such an organization? Who funds them?

If it is the government, then that is just the FDA with extra steps

I could imagine food companies funding it to keep their competitors in check, don't know how likely that is in practice

Maybe there could be a way to make the consumer pay for the service. Provide a website where customers pay a fee, enter the name of the product/restaurant then get their safety levels. You could even include fancy graphs and charts to sweeten the deal. How to do that profitably I dont know.

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