In celebration of the 7 June World Food Safety Day, FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and WHO Regional Office for Europe held a joint event this morning to discuss food safety in the context of sustainable food systems and actions needed to address food safety issues in the interface of humans, animals and environment. The event was attended by 216 participants and was available in English and Russian languages.

The opening addresses by Mr. Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director-General, Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia and Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe (who recorded a video statement) underlined the links between food safety and food systems and the importance of the work done by FAO, WHO, and OIE in the region as part of regional One-Health coordination mechanism.

Mr. Vladimir Rakhmanin reminded that access to safe and nutritious food is a basic human right, and that food safety can be ensured as a part of well-functioning and sustainable food systems. Mr. Rakhmanin mentioned the importance of scientific and technological capacities of Member States to protect consumers and enable farmers and food businesses to comply with food safety regulations. He called to strengthen connections between food safety authorities and academia and scale up efforts towards resilient value chains, reminding that in COVID-19 conditions when everyone had to adapt, the experience demonstrated importance of capacity to comply with food safety requirements as key to access markets.

In his video address, Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge spoke about the globalization of food chains and changes to consumer habits resulting in increased food exports coming with higher risk of unsafe food across borders. In the region, every year estimated 23 million people get sick and 5,000 die from consuming unsafe foods. He noted that sustainable food systems are supported by One Health approach, as FAO, WHO, and OIE strive to support 53 Member States and work towards better use of available resources in the fight against threats to humans, animals and the environment in Europe and Central Asia.

The introduction was followed by a keynote address by Dr Delia Grace, Professor in Food Safety Systems at the International Livestock Research Institute, who focused her presentation on the informal sector (defined as absence of structured sanitary inspection) and the perception of importance of food safety issues as compared to actual foodborne disease burden. She pointed that US$95 billion is lost each year in productivity from unsafe food in low- and middle-income countries which is significantly higher than illness treatment or trade loss.

Following on from this, Peter Sousa Hoejskov from WHO and Mary Kenny from FAO moderated an expert panel discussion. Panel contributors were: Tamara Boskovic, Head of Veterinary Public Health Department, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, Serbia; Leon Gorris, International Food Safety Expert; Benjamin Sachse, Senior Scientific Officer/Food toxicologist, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Department Food Safety; and Nailya Karsybekova, Coordinator, FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Europe.

What emerged from the discussion was the importance of cross-sectoral and inter-regional approach to food safety, of the support to small and medium enterprise, the idea that food systems can get stronger based on the learnings from the COVID-19 event and the need for scientific data and evidence to provide safe and sustainable food in future for all.