World Food Safety Day 2020: Calls to scale up hygiene practices

29 May 2020 --- The second World Food Safety Day (WFSD) will be celebrated on June 7 to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks. Following the first celebration of the event in 2019, this year’s WFSD reinforces the call to scale up food safety made by the Addis Ababa Conference and the Geneva Forum in 2019 under the umbrella of “The Future of Food Safety.”

The World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), is pleased to facilitate Member States efforts to celebrate the World Food Safety Day. Under the theme “Food safety, everyone’s business”, the action-oriented campaign will promote global food safety awareness and call upon countries and decision makers, the private sector, civil society, UN organizations and the general public to take action.

Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. This sentiment has been echoed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, as agri-food players have spoken out on a general feeling that disruptions in the global supply chain have posed some serious consequences related to this issue.

Despite the challenges posed by coronavirus, the International Food Additives Council (IFAC) recently highlighted that the safety and quality of the global food supply remains strong, arguing that food additives may continue to play a vital role in maintaining the quality of foods in the home pantry.

This month in industry news also saw the advancement of various technological solutions in this space, such as Chemometric Brain’s newly launched software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform created to identify food fraud and increase transparency along the global supply chain. The cloud-based software uses near-infrared (NIR) technology to guarantee the traceability, suitability and homogeneity of ingredients and food products. 

Also in headlines this month, EU-funded project YPACK found that integrating zinc oxide and oregano essential oil helps the bio-papers protect against bacterial contamination in food packaging. The project has developed a bio-based plastic alternative to traditional plastic food packaging that can biodegrade within 90 days. These new findings indicate the potential of the bio-based active packaging to increase the shelf life of fresh products like meat, fruits and vegetables and fresh pasta. 

Edited by Benjamin Ferrer