World Food Safety Day
Foodborne illnesses remain an immense challenge to this day. The United Nations record around 600 million cases of foodborne illnesses every year. Approximately 420 000 people die annually because of contaminated food. In particular, this problem concerns already vulnerable and marginalized groups such as women, children as well as people in conflict regions and migrants. Every day, 340 children under the age of 5 die due to preventable foodborne diseases.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) together with the World Health Organisation (WHO) are central to ensuring international food safety. As the only international organisation dealing with all steps of the food production chain, the FAO applies a holistic approach to food safety – from planting a seed to cooking a meal.
This year’s World Food Safety Day takes place under the theme ‘Food standards save lives.’ Food standards are a set of safety practices that set a frame in which food is handled safely to be consumed. These standards are crucial in ensuring the quality and safety for food whether it is defining the maximum levels of contaminants and additives or the safe transport and packaging of food. International organizations such as the FAO and the WHO are essential in ensuring global food standards. Particularly international bodies like the Codex Alimentarius Commission (short: Codex) set the standards based on scientific expertise.
The EU aims to assure a high level of food safety and animal & plant health while ensuring an effective internal market through its Farm and Fork strategy. It follows an integrated approach which is acted upon based on effective control systems and compliance with EU standards, food safety in international relations, and science-based risk management. The latter builds on the work of the European Food Safety Authority – an EU agency founded in 2002.
It is a central goal of the EU to protect human health in the food industry as Europe’s largest manufacturing and employment sector. This is guided by the European Commission’s White Paper on Food Safety.
Animal health also represents an important part of food safety. With its Animal Health policy, the EU aims to raise the health status and improve animal conditions in the EU, particularly food-producing ones. At the same time, the EU aims to promote free trade in breeding animals and their genetic material considering the sustainability of breeding programs and preservation of genetic resources.
When it comes to plant health, the EU aims to detect and eradicate pests early on to ensure healthy seeds. Therefore, international phytosanitary and quality standards for plants and plant products are actively set by the European Commission.
In the end, ensuring food safety is not only about international organizations and national governments - ‘Food safety is everyone’s business’ as the slogan of World Food Safety Day 2023 goes. The general public, the private sector, and civil society, therefore, play a crucial role for food safety. Find out more about what you can do to promote and ensure food safety here.
