To reduce foodborne illnesses, hazard and risk-based quality management systems are essential. Small and medium sized companies (SMEs) tend to have a poor understanding of such systems and limited adoption of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system (HACCP). The requirement for full HACCP implementation by 2006 will place an even greater burden on these businesses. The aim of this project is to assess the current levels of understanding of hazards and risks in SMEs in the manufacturing sector. A questionnaire survey was made of 850 SMEs, including microbusinesses. This determined the industry sector and processes carried out, whether the company operated hazard-based quality management and the knowledge of the technical manager regarding the associated hazards and risks. Follow-up visits to the manufacturing plant observed the processes and the operatives to determine their level of understanding. A benchmarking audit was carried out and each company was rated. The results show that the majority of respondents stated that they operated hazard analysis-based quality management. The ability of the respondents to correctly define a hazard or risk or identify different types of hazard was, however, poor. There was no correlation between business type and audit score. The microbusinesses did, however, perform significantly less well than the larger SMEs.