From CNN Money.com

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) - Growing concern about food safety has led Julie Behounek to avoid supermarkets, processed food or even deli sandwiches.

"What's happened in the last year just highlighted everything I was concerned about," the project manager from Jersey City, N.J. said at a farmer's market in New York. "Profit motive is the No. 1 priority for food producers. We have to look out for ourselves."

In the year since three people died and more than 200 were sickened by E. coli after eating contaminated raw spinach, and other reports have surfaced about tainted pet foods, fish and peanut butter, food companies are facing growing pressure to regain trust of consumers, whose confidence in the safety of what they eat is at an 18-year low.

Companies have ramped up inspections, added food safety research budgets and are updating systems to avoid a misstep, which may not only lead to illness or death, but can also result in a battered corporate image, lost sales and market share. The changes are critical as the U.S. increases its imports and companies roll out products at a faster pace, leaving their traditional safety-check systems vulnerable.

"There's an absolute need for food companies to step it up," said Bob Allen, a principal at Archstone Consulting, which advises major U.S. food and consumer- products companies. "The supply chain has changed on food companies. A lot of it is under strain as a result of growth and innovation."

Confidence undermined

In response to growing safety concerns, the Food Marketing Institute, a trade association whose board members include chief executives of 81 companies such as grocery giants Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) , Kroger Co. (KR) and Safeway Inc. ( SWY) , formed a task force in October devoted to food safety.

"There's a great interest by both the supplier community and retailers to identify and trace foods," said Jill Hollingsworth, FMI's group vice president of food safety programs. "Retailers want to know more about where foods come from. The old system is just not enough anymore."

A new system can't come soon enough. Only 66% of shoppers, the lowest since 1989, are confident that the food they buy at grocery stores is safe, according to a survey by the Arlington, Va.-based FMI, whose members represent three quarters of domestic grocery sales. That's down from 82% last year. ..

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