Today, 7 June, we celebrate the fifth World Food Safety Day with the theme “Food standards save lives”. The day is being promoted across social media channels using the hashtag #WorldFoodSafetyDay, and all over the world, individuals, NGOs, private companies, local and national governments and international organizations are hosting events and activities to take up the call to raise awareness on how to prevent, detect and manage foodborne illness. Four official FAO-hosted events will take place today at FAO in Rome, and [...]

On 7 June 2023 the world will celebrate the fifth United Nations World Food Safety Day and this year the theme is “food standards save lives”. A video will be launched in six languages to coincide with World Food Safety Day explaining what food safety standards are and why they matter. Standards and norms are all around us. They can be used to measure, to express quality and quantity or to calculate a level or grade. They provide certainty. They can, for [...]

The countdown has begun to the fifth World Food Safety Day which will be celebrated all over the world on 7 June 2023. A glance at the World Food Safety Day web pages shows how Member Countries, Codex Observers, industry, academia and a host of consumer groups and other associations are joining together to raise awareness about the importance of safe food throughout the food chain. The theme for the 2023 World Food Safety Day is “Food Standards Save Lives”, chosen by [...]

Four new 2-page leaflets have been published by FAO and WHO as part of the campaign for World Food Safety Day. The leaflets are aimed at producers in the aquaculture, dairy, fisheries and horticulture sectors and provide advice on best practices for ensuring the production of safe food. Links are provided in the leaflets to FAO and WHO publications that give more in-depth expert and scientific information on good practices in each sector. The leaflets also offer tips on how to promote [...]

Under the slogan “Together for Food Safety, Healthy South Korea”, the 22nd Korea Food Safety Day took place on 12 May 2023, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Since 2002 this day has been designated for raising awareness about food safety and encompasses two-weeks of campaigns using radio, social media and on-site food safety policy events. Oh, Yu-kyoung, Minister of Food and Drug Safety, Republic of Korea The kick-off event showcased technology and innovation in food safety with a digital food safety platform using QR [...]

In 2022 the Codex Secretariat began work on reviewing the formatting and layout of Codex texts to ensure consistency, to meet FAO and international publishing standards and to enhance readability. A digital object identifier (DOI) has also been added to standards as they are published, providing a unique reference that can support tracking and citation of each text. The project is part of the Codex Secretariat’s contribution to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The General [...]

Cara Tannenbaum, Departmental Science Advisor to Health Canada, welcomed delegates to the 47th session of the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL) taking place from 15-19 May 2023 in Gatineau, Ottawa in Canada. “Codex has served the global community well, allowing us to leverage the best possible science and evidence to support international standard setting,” she said, underling how countries consider the international labelling standards developed by the committee as they develop their own food labelling regulations and policies for [...]

In 2022 the Codex Secretariat began work on reviewing the formatting and layout of Codex texts to ensure consistency, to meet FAO and international publishing standards and to enhance readability. A digital object identifier has also been added to standards as they are published, providing a unique reference that can support tracking and citation of each text. The project is part of the Codex Secretariat’s contribution to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. As the Codex [...]

Speaking on Wednesday 26 Aprile, 2023, at the 22nd annual Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) Conference, in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States of America, Codex Chairperson Steve Wearne said: “Our systems for standards and trade have their foundation in the creation of Codex 60 years ago and the World Trade Organization more than a quarter of a century ago.  The global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, soil, water and air quality, require us to think about how we might [...]

As the sixteenth session of the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods (CCCF) drew to close in Utrecht, the Kingdom of the Netherlands on Thursday 20 April 2023, Japan took the floor to inform the Committee that this would be Yukiko Yamada’s last meeting. Yukiko began her Codex career initially in the Codex Secretariat in FAO in 1993 and over the last 30 years has served the Codex Alimentarius Commission, her Government but above all consumers in her inspirational and “unwavering [...]