Safe Food – A Healthy Tomorrow

Why improving food safety is important:

Access to sufficient amounts of safe food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health. Foodborne illnesses are usually infectious or toxic in nature and often invisible to the plain eye, caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances entering the body through contaminated food or water.

Food safety has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe at every stage of the food chain - from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, all the way to preparation and consumption.

World Food Safety Day on 7 June aims to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development. This international day is an opportunity to strengthen efforts to ensure that the food we eat is safe, mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.

Food safety saves lives. It is not only a crucial component to food security, but it also plays a vital role in reducing foodborne disease. Every year, 600 million people fall sick as a result of around 200 different types of foodborne illness. The burden of such illness falls most heavily on the poor and on the young. In addition, foodborne illness is responsible for 420 000 preventable deaths every year.

World Food Safety Day is an important way of:

• Making people aware of food safety issues
• Demonstrating how to prevent illness through food safety
• Discussing collaborative approaches to improved food safety across sectors
• Promoting solutions and ways of being more food safe 

Food safety is everyone’s business:

The way in which food is produced, stored, handled and consumed affects the safety of our food. Complying with Global food standards, establishing effective regulatory food control systems including emergency preparedness and response, providing access to clean water, applying good agriculture practices (terrestrial, aquatic, livestock, horticulture), strengthening the use of food safety management systems by food business operators, and building capacities of consumers to make healthy food choices are some ways in which governments, international organizations, scientists, the private sector and civil society work to ensure food safety.

Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers. Everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and will not cause damages to our health. Through World Food Safety Day, WHO pursues its efforts to mainstream food safety in the public agenda and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.

Food Safety, Quality and Consumer Protection:

The terms food safety and food quality can sometimes be confusing. Food safety refers to all those hazards, whether chronic or acute, that may make food injurious to the health of the consumer. It is not negotiable.

Quality includes all other attributes that influence a product's value to the consumer. This includes negative attributes such as spoilage, contamination with filth, discoloration, off-odours and positive attributes such as the origin, colour, flavour, texture and processing method of the food.

This distinction between safety and quality has implications for public policy and influences the nature and content of the food control system most suited to meet predetermined national objectives.

Food control is defined as:

a mandatory regulatory activity of enforcement by national or local authorities to provide consumer protection and ensure that all foods during production, handling, storage, processing, and distribution are safe, wholesome and fit for human consumption; conform to safety and quality requirements; and are honestly and accurately labelled as prescribed by law. 

The foremost responsibility of food control is to enforce the food law(s) protecting the consumer against unsafe, impure and fraudulently presented food by prohibiting the sale of food not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser.

Confidence in the safety and integrity of the food supply is an important requirement for consumers. Foodborne disease outbreaks involving agents such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella and chemical contaminants highlight problems with food safety and increase public anxiety that modern farming systems, food processing and marketing do not provide adequate safeguards for public health. Factors which contribute to potential hazards in foods include improper agricultural practices; poor hygiene at all stages of the food chain; lack of preventive controls in food processing and preparation operations; misuse of chemicals; contaminated raw materials, ingredients and water; inadequate or improper storage, etc.

Specific concerns about food hazards have usually focused on:

• Microbiological hazards;
• Pesticide residues;
• Misuse of food additives;
• Chemical contaminants, including biological toxins; and

Consumers expect protection from hazards occurring along the entire food chain, from primary producer through consumer. Protection will only occur if all sectors in the chain operate in an integrated way, and food control systems address all stages of this chain. 

As no mandatory activity of this nature can achieve its objectives fully without the cooperation and active participation of all stakeholders e.g., farmers, industry, and consumers, the term Food Control System is used in these Guidelines to describe the integration of a mandatory regulatory approach with preventive and educational strategies that protect the whole food chain. Thus, an ideal food control system should include effective enforcement of mandatory requirements, along with training and education, community outreach programmes and promotion of voluntary compliance. The introduction of preventive approaches such as the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point System (HACCP), have resulted in industry taking greater responsibility for and control of food safety risks. Such an integrated approach facilitates improved consumer protection, effectively stimulates agriculture and the food processing industry, and promotes domestic and international food trade.

Nutrition and Food Safety:

Access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health. Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances can cause more than 200 different diseases – ranging from diarrhoea to cancers. Around the world, an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people – fall ill after eating contaminated food each year, resulting in 420 000 deaths and the loss of 33 million healthy life years (DALYs).

Food safety, nutrition and food security are closely linked. Unsafe food creates a vicious cycle of disease and malnutrition, particularly affecting infants, young children, elderly and the sick. In addition to contributing to food and nutrition security, a safe food supply also supports national economies, trade and tourism, stimulating sustainable development. The globalization of food trade, a growing world population, climate change and rapidly changing food systems have an impact on the safety of food. WHO aims to enhance at a global and country-level the capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats associated with unsafe food.

COVID-19 and food safety:

Currently, there is no evidence that the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can be transmitted by food. The virus is transmitted primarily by people who are infected through coughing and sneezing droplets which are then picked up by another person.

Coronavirus cannot grow on food. While bacteria under the right conditions can grow on food, a virus such as the one that causes COVID-19, requires a living host in order to multiply. Though the virus can survive on objects and surfaces, it is not known how long it can survive on food and what amount of contamination would make a person sick.

The best way to avoid COVID-19 is through good hygiene habits. Always wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and dry thoroughly with a clean towel - after shopping,

Download, Read & Share: Guidance on COVID-19 & Food Safety, WHO Guideline on Important Anti-Microbial in Food Processing, Introductory module Strengthening surveillance of and response to foodborne diseases