On the occasion of the World Food Safety Day and as a part of WHO “Health talks” organized in contribution to the Food Systems Summit, EatSafe/Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) hosted the virtual conversation “Interview Cruncher – Talking Food Safety.” Participants included Consumer Advocacy for Food Safety and Nutrition Initiative, Health Policy Watch, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and HealthSetGo.

Bonnie McClafferty, Director for Food Safety at GAIN, hosted and moderated the conversation. She opened the webinar with an introduction on the importance of focusing on food safety and described six reasons to do so: 1) 600 million people fall ill each year due to a foodborne illness, with 75% of illnesses in Africa and South-East Asia. 2) Foodborne diseases are underreported and the safety of food in general is a neglected critical public health problem. 3) Over $110bn is thought to be lost every year in lost productivity, medical expenses resulting from unsafe food in low-and-middle income countries. 4) World Food Safety Day is a dedicated day which helps shine the light on these numbers. “The food system is rapidly changing underneath these numbers,” noted Bonnie McClafferty. “We need to know more about it. If we don’t measure it, we can’t fix it, and if we don’t measure, we can’t invest in it.” 5) Food safety affects everyone, public private, farmers, retailers, most importantly, consumers and all of us. 6) Foodborne illness is preventable.

Virtual conversation participants Prof. Olugbenga Ben Ogunmoyela, Executive Director, Consumer Advocacy for Food Safety and Nutrition Initiative (CAFSANI), Nigeria; Priya Prakash, Campaign Lead, #ACT4FOOD #ACT4CHANGE, India; and Mohamed Nasser, Regional Advisor Food Safety and Quality Assurance, World Food Programme, Dakar/Senegal discussed the importance of food safety in general and more specifically food safety in traditional markets where food safety guidelines, regulation and laws are usually not present.

Dr Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of GAIN, recorded a video address, and Bonnie McClafferty presented on the EatSafe project, a 5-year program aiming to enable lasting improvements in the safety of nutritious foods in informal markets by focusing on the consumer. 

EatSafe is a research and learning program sponsored by USAID and led by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).

For more information:

The recording of the webinar: https://healthtalks.foodsystemsforhealth.org/talks/interview-cruncher-talking-food-safety/ 

Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN): https://www.gainhealth.org/?ref=heysummit