Today, June 7, is World Food Safety Day. This year’s theme is “Safer Food, Better Health.” The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations facilitate this observance each year to make people aware of food safety issues, help prevent foodborne illness, consider collaborative approaches and promote solutions.
The Alliance to STOP Foodborne Illness, the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are reminding consumers and businesses of the food safety resources they offer, as well as some new tools.
Alliance resources
To celebrate World Food Safety Day, the Alliance to STOP Foodborne Illness has released a free food safety culture toolkit tailored for small and medium-sized food businesses.
The kit is a guide to help manufacturing workforces find the “why” behind their company’s food safety measures. You can sign up and download the toolkit here.
“Every year, one in six Americans are sickened by a foodborne illness. This toolkit helps companies shift away from ‘have to be safe’ to ‘want to be safe’ in order to protect overall public health,” says Dr. Vanessa Coffman, director of the Alliance.
This is a collaboration between Stop Foodborne Iliness (STOP) and Fortune 500 food safety practitioners at Amazon, Costco, Kellogg and more.
“Sharing our Alliance members’ best practices help smaller companies build a path toward stronger food safety cultures,” adds Coffman.
FDA resources
The FDA’s World Food Safety Day page offers ways to participate and information on how to protect yourself and your family from foodborne diseases.
Frank Yiannas, deputy FDA commissioner for food policy and response, is participating in WHO’s Health Talks on Food Safety, conversations with experts from all over the world on new and emerging issues. He is speaking on “Bending the Curve of Foodborne Illness in a Digital World.”
Also participating from FDA in the June 7-9 Health Talks are Adam Friedlander, a policy analyst in the Office of Food Policy and Response, who will be talking about “Facilitating Traceability for Inclusive and Sustainable Development,” and Jon Woody, director of the Food Defense and Emergency Coordination Staff in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, who will be addressing “Food Fraud and Food Defense.” For more information on this event, visit foodsafety.whohealthtalks.org.
USDA resources
The USDA works to ensure that everyone’s food is safe. Safer food means healthier people.
While the USDA ensures that meat, poultry and egg products are safe, they also provide information on how to handle food safely to prevent foodborne illness. You can reach USDA’s Meat and Poultry Hotline from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EDT, Monday through Friday via:
- Phone: 888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854)
- Email: MPHotline@usda.gov
- Live chat: ask.usda.gov
You can also practice food safety year-round with these tools:
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