The school meals team at the Municipality of Alcobaça in Portugal organized a special World Food Safety Day event for the children whose meals they oversee. Engineer Ana Pereira and Doctor Cristina António held awareness sessions in their local schools, teaching good food handling practices and why they are important.

The sessions aimed to show the children what they can do to ensure they consume safe food. There was a game about the “five keys to safer food” with children aged between 6 and 10. The children were also taught about some science behind food safety with petri dishes and yeasts provided by the Portuguese food and beverages company, Sumol+Campol.

“The awareness session was fantastic,” said Engineer Ana Pereira. “It's so good to be able to help tomorrow's adults to be well informed about food safety, confident that today they will go home to tell and influence their parents and grandparents to have better hygiene and food safety practices.”

Photo © Ana Pereira and Cristina António (Alcobaça City Council)
Caption: The students at the primary school in Póvoa (Alcobaça), with teacher Paula, Dr. Cristina António and engineer Ana Pereira