In the context of the World Food Safety Day, the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry and Environmental Engineering of the Politehnica University Timisoara, Romania, organized a poster contest “Youth and Food Safety - PolySafeFood 4th Edition”. The competition took place online on 7 June.

Participants submitted posters and videos (5 minutes max.) on various food safety topics and on 7 June, the winners of the poster contest were announced in an online event where the representatives of the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry and Environmental Engineering offered a speech about the safety aspect of alimentation and the importance of educating more specialist in the field of food safety. By organizing this event, the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry and Environmental Engineering joins the campaign to raise awareness of the importance of food safety initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with the message "Food safety is everyone's responsibility", and the central theme in 2023 was "Food standards save lives".

The “Youth and Food Safety – PolySafeFood” competition targets preuniversity scholars, including their professors, with the aim of promoting responsible consumer behaviour by raising awareness of food safety guidelines, cultivating an interest in food science with a focus on chemistry, advancing communication and collaboration skills among scholars, and enhancing critical and creative thinking abilities. Organized on the occasion of World Food Safety Day, this competition brings into discussion topics such as safe raw materials for healthy food, standards and practices for food safety, safe food additives, a secure route for food to the consumer, smart and safe packaging, with the aims to disseminate about the importance of food safety and the individual actions that can be taken to mitigate the risks associated with unsafe food. The event's ultimate goal was to involve and inform as many people as possible.

This is the fourth year in a row that the faculty has organized its "PolySafeFood" event, which is widely promoted on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Winning entries can be found
on the PolySafeFood Instagram (@polysafefood)
and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077490529276).

Image © Politehinca University Timisoara
Caption: PolySafeFood_Online Event_2023_Participants to the Event (the people in the picture Iulia Pausescu, Ioana-Cristina Benea, Mihai Medealu, Andra Tamas, Cristina Paul, Mirabela Padure are some of the organizers of the event, while the rest of the people are the young student enrolled in the poster contest)