FAO delves into foresight in food safety with the Food Safety Magazine
The Food Safety Magazine recently interviewed Vittorio Fattori, Food Safety Officer, and Keya Mukherjee, Food Safety Specialist, for their podcast entitled, “Preparing for Tomorrow’s Food Safety Risks, Today”
The podcast covers a number of areas that are included in the publication Thinking about the future of food safety – A foresight report (2022). These areas are new foods, climate change, emerging contaminants, urban food systems, and plastic packaging with a circular economy focus.
Mukherjee discussed the various potential health risks associated with edible insects, cell-based food, and seaweeds. She outlined some of the greatest threats to food safety from a warming climate and spoke about the food safety implications of shrinking water availability due to climate change, while laying down some of the steps that food safety professionals can take to monitor and mitigate growing climate threats.
Fattori spoke about the associations between climate change and transmission of foodborne pathogens as well as how food safety actors can counter the growing challenges associated with mycotoxigenic fungi and marine toxin forming algae. He also discussed some of the food safety concerns in urban controlled-environment agriculture and gave an overview of the food safety considerations when implementing circular economy approach in plastic recycling with end products finding food contact applications.
Link to the Food Safety Magazine podcast here
Read about FAO’s work on foresight in food safety
Video: Using foresight in food safety
Video: What new foods are on the horizon?