Why food safety must be a public health priority

Access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food is key to sustaining life and promoting good health. Food safety is the presence of acceptable levels, of hazards in food that may harm the health of consumers. Food borne hazards can be microbiological, chemical or physical in nature and are often invisible to the plain eye. Food safety has a critical role in assuring that food stays safe at every stage of the food chain from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, all the way to preparation and consumption. Its safety, however, has become a major concern to the food industry as well as a major contributor to a myriad of health problems world over.

Globalisation has triggered growing consumer demand for a wider variety of foods, resulting in an increasingly complex and longer global food chain. As the world’s population grows, the intensification and industrialization of agriculture and animal production to meet increasing demand for food creates both opportunities and challenges for food safety.