The first issue of the "Archiv für Lebensmittelhygiene" has been released in January of 1950 entitled "Der Lebensmitteltierarzt" ("The food veterinary"). Publisher and editor was Prof. Dr. Schönberg, working at the "Institute für verterinary food science" belonging to the Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover. At first, "Der Lebensmitteltierarzt" was published monthly in cooperation with the M. & H. Schaper Verlag (Hanover) as a supplement to the "Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift". In the first issue's editorial, Prof. Dr. Schönberg stated that a periodically released bulletin for veterinaries working in the areas of food hygiene, food production and food preservation had so far been missing in Germany and that this gap had been closed by now.

It had been intended to publish articles and information from all areas of food hygiene. All veterinaries working in these areas of expertise were asked to contribute to the journal's forthcoming.

The title "Der Lebensmitteltierarzt" had been critizised frequently which was the reason for changing it into „Archiv für Lebensmittelhygiene, insbesondere für Fleisch- Fisch- und Milchhygiene” in 1955. Nowadays, the term "food veterinary" is being discussed positively again. In March 1965, Prof. Dr. Gisske (Hanover) replaced Prof. Dr. Schönberg as editor who had unfortunately died prematurely. PD Dr. Kraus had taken care of the journal in the transition period.

In January 1971, the editors changed once more: Prof. Dr. Terplan (Munich) and Prof. Dr. Wenzel (Hanover) took charge of the editorial responsibility. For the first time, the editors werde assisted by an editorial team consisting of well-known scientist. In the course of time, an editorial board was formed of the working group "food hygiene" of the managing-committee of the Deutsche Veterinärmedizinischen Gesellschaft (DVG), the corresponding Swiss and Austrian colleagues and internationally well-accepted scientist. Prof. Dr. Märtlbauer and Prof. Dr. Stolle (Munich) took charge of the editorial responsibility in 1998.

Since January 2006, the "Archiv für Lebensmittelhygiene" is the official organ of the section "food hygiene" belonging to the Deutschen Veterinärmedizinischen Gesellschaft. At the end of 2009, Prof. Klein (Hanover) and Prof. Haunhorst (Oldenburg) became editors of this journal with a fine tradition.

Among first-class articles, booklets containing specific works on prevailing topics and discussions on important developments are being published nowadays. 

The first German journal covering the area of food hygiene has turned into a modern and academic magazine. The articles are subject to a peer-review procedure and mostly written in English language. Consequently, with the issue 1/2011 the journal's parallel title was set as "Journal of Food Safety and Food Quality“. 

At the beginning of 2017, the journal took a big step into the digital world. Since the issue 1/2017, the "Journal of Food Safety and Food Quality“ is being exclusively published as digital journal and can be read as a so-called epaper on www.journal-food-safety.de where it is also possible to access single articles. Nearly at the same time, the editorship had to change again. After Prof. Klein departed much too early from life, PD Corinna Kehrenberg, PhD, from Hanover accepted the responsibility for leading the journal into the future together with Prof. Haunhorst and in the intention of Prof. Klein.

Helga Nagengast (Hanover)