The article discusses food safety and quality from a scientific perspective, focusing on how different groups perceive and evaluate these aspects. It explores the idea of food safety as the opposite of food risk and how it is assessed by producers, official agencies, and customers. The study suggests that food safety can be evaluated based on biological, chemical, and physical risks, with different intensity levels. It also highlights the importance of food safety policies and the collaboration between industry laboratories and official food safety control institutions. The research findings show that laboratories in the Wielkopolska region of Poland have good analytical performance but some gaps in cooperation with official bodies.