World Food Safety Day will raise awareness of the global threat posed by foodborne diseases and reinforce the need for governments, the food industry and individuals to do more to make food safe and prevent these diseases. Ren Wang Director FAO Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection Yesterday (Wednesday 5th July) the 40th session of FAO Conference adopted a draft resolution, to be transmitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations with a view to having the General Assembly of the United Nations [...]

If they are to be used, standards will have to keep up with what is happening on the market. Dr Howard Porter, CEO of BEAMA and board member of ORGALIME.   BSI Conference Standards increasingly matter wherever you go and whatever you do. On Thursday 22nd of June, the BSI Group hosted a one day conference in Edinburgh to discuss some of the major questions coming up in the field of standardization. The event gathered standards professionals from 50 countries representing standards bodies, consumer organizations, [...]

Anyone can now follow Codex Alimentarius meetings simply by clicking on the RSS icon. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is a technology used to monitor rapidly changing information on the web in an organized and user friendly way.  It is identified by the little orange and white RSS icon that is found all over the world on Web sites, in particular on news sites and blogs.  By posting a "feed" on their page, web site owners allow RSS readers to search [...]

May 23rd 2017 Paris. World Organisation for Animal Health  Speech: Tom Heilandt  The actual speech as it was delivered may deviate from the speech texts made available on this website. Chers déléguées, délégués - Mesdames et Messieurs Bonjour !  Je voudrais premièrement remercier l'OIE et sa directrice générale – Dr Monique Éloit pour cette invitation et la possibilité de m'adresser à vous ici aujourd'hui. Le thème de la discussion qui suivra ces interventions individuelles est très pertinent. Toute normalisation est inutile si [...]

Feed Safety Multi-stakeholder Partnership Survey on guidance material (tools, methods, manuals, etc.) on how to conduct risk assessment for feed What is the objective of the survey? The FAO facilitated Feed Safety Multi-stakeholder Partnership is conducting this survey to take stock and collect currently available material (e.g. tools, methods, manuals) on how to conduct risk assessment for feed. This is done, as part of preparing practical guidance and training materials (manual and other tools) to support the implementation of the Codex Alimentarius [...]

The Codex Secretariat has published the report of the working group on AMR hosted by the UK and co-chaired by the USA and Australia that met in London from 29 November to 2 December 2016. The report is available online as a working document of the 40th Codex Alimentarius Commission which will take place in Geneva in July. Broad consensus The London meeting completed the tasks set by the 2016 Commission and carried out the initial ground work for the Codex Task Force [...]

Earlier this week there were stories in the press that the UK Food Standards Agency is warning that overcooked starchy foods can contain acrylamide, a chemical liked to cancer. Risks during high temperature cooking Recent concern over the presence of acrylamide in food dates from 2002. Scientists reported that up to “mg/kg” quantities of acrylamide could be formed in carbohydrate-rich foods during high-temperature cooking, e.g. during frying, baking, roasting, toasting and grilling.  Acrylamide (or acrylic amide) is a chemical compound with the chemical [...]

As a busy period of Codex activities gets underway starting with the FAO/WHO Regional Coordinating Committee for Africa next week (16th January) in Kenya, the Codex Secretariat has conducted a brief review of the highlights of 2016. 39 new texts The core business in Codex is developing international standards and the 39th Commission adopted 39 new and revised texts last year. These included completion of the Code of Practice on Fish and Fishery Products and the subsequent adjournment of the Fish Committee. Ensuring good [...]

Meeting Announcement Date change The 40th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission will take place in Geneva, Switzerland: Monday 17 to Saturday 22 July 2017. The venue will be announced shortly. Consequently the Executive Committee will meet in Geneva from 10-13 July 2017. Photo credit (c) Codex/Sciotti

After three days of fruitful discussions, the 430 participants of the 4th OIE Global Conference on Animal welfare representing more than 100 countries have endorsed a range of recommendations aimed at furthering the improvement of animal welfare worldwide, one of the OIE’s priority domains of work. In addition, a draft Global strategy on animal welfare was presented for the first time to the participants to serve as a basis for discussion during the event. This strategy notably recommends the establishment of [...]