The second World Food Safety Day (WFSD) will be celebrated on 7 June 2020 to draw attention and inspire action to

• help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks,
• contribute to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.

This year, the theme is ‘Food safety, everyone’s business’.

Key Messages

Everyone has the right to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. However, almost one in ten people in the world fall ill after eating contaminated food.

When food is not safe, children cannot learn, adults cannot work. Human development cannot take place. Safe food is critical to promoting health and ending hunger, two of the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

When food is not safe, there can be no food security and in a world where the food supply chain has become more complex, any adverse food safety incident has a negative impact on public health, trade and the economy.

Yet food safety is regularly taken for granted. It is often invisible until you get food poisoning. Unsafe food (containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances) causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhoea to cancer.

Whether you produce, process, sell or prepare food, you have a role in keeping it safe. Everybody along the food chain is responsible for food safety.

There is no food security without food safety.

If it is not safe, it is not food. Food security is achieved when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to food that meets their dietary needs for an active and healthy life.

In fact, food safety is a critical part of the utilization component of the four dimensions of food security – availability, access, utilization and stability.