Pieternel Luning

Pieternel Luning is an Associate Professor at Wageningen University in the Department of Food Quality and Design. She co-founded the MSc program Food Quality Management and leads interdisciplinary research on food safety management systems, food safety culture, and risk-based auditing. Her work integrates techno-managerial approaches with social network analysis and qualitative methodologies.

Education: She holds degrees in Food Chemistry and Microbiology from Wageningen University, followed by a PhD on bell pepper flavor at Food & Biobased Research. Post-doctoral roles included flavor research at Unilever and packaging product management at TNO.

Research focuses on food safety systems' effectiveness, digitalization, and governance, with projects in Europe, Africa, and Asia. She co-created the GFSI Food Fraud Vulnerability Assessment tool and chairs the Salus Food Safety Culture group.

Key areas: Food safety culture, HACCP systems, supply chain integrity, and interdisciplinary research methods such as Net-Map and social labs. Supervised over 30 PhD students globally, with topics including food fraud in spices, dairy chain hygiene in Kenya, and consumer acceptance of meat alternatives.

Collaborations span EU initiatives (Trustfood, FoodSafety4EU) and global projects like Veg-i-Trade. Her book Food Quality Management is widely used in academic curricula.