7th June marks the UN’s World Food Safety Day. A relatively new international day, World Food Safety Day was officially recognised by the World Health Assembly in 2020, and exists to draw attention to the importance of food safety and the danger of foodborne diseases.
This year’s theme is ‘Food Standards Save Lives’. The focus of today will be to highlight food safety practices, which help to keep food clean and of good quality to prevent food-related sickness. There is a desperate need for good food standards. As it stands, the consumption of contaminated food is responsible for over 600 million people falling ill and 420,000 people dying every year. Not only this but on average 1 600 000 people get sick because of unsafe foods every day, with around 200 different diseases being caused by unsafe food. This is utterly preventable and a huge issue we must overcome in the journey to sustainability.
The UN’s 17 Sustainability Goals (SDGs) include food safety in their goals, recognising the value of safe food when it comes to looking after the planet and its people. Goal 2 of the 17 SGDs is to ‘end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture’. Part of this concerns actual farming practices to ensure that the ecosystem is looked after properly in the food production process. However, another element concerns food safety. The first target of Goal 2 is to ‘end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular, the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round’. The UN acknowledges that safe food is a priority in the mission for sustainability.
We’re thrilled that others also recognise the importance of food safety, and so today we would like to spend a moment sharing the fantastic work they have been doing. This year, HSBC has been partnering with RedSea, an agricultural technology company, to help tackle food insecurity. RedSea creates solutions to farming, such as how to keep crops cool in warmer climates. This kind of work will help to ensure better crop yields in otherwise unforgiving climates and is a promising way to boost food security. Their work is funded by HSBC and it is this kind of collaboration, in which resources are pooled, which means that sustainability can be worked towards. You can read more about HSBC’s involvement in this project here.
Nestlé is also working hard to promote sustainable attitudes towards food and food production. World Food Safety Day is a call to action for policy makers, workplaces, consumers, and in particular food businesses. As a food business, it is wonderful to see that Nestlé is already committed to ensure safe food. Part of Nestlé’s sustainability plan involves their support of regenerative farming practices. In fact, Nestlé aim to source 50% of their key ingredients through regenerative agriculture methods by 2030, which is around 14 million tonnes. These kinds of practices mean that the soil health is looked after, and biodiversity is protected. This not only means that the environment is looked after, but the crops produced are healthier leading to safer food, which is better for the people. As such, these kinds of practices have a much more holistic approach to looking after the planet, a key ethos of World Wide Generation.
It is fantastic to see this work going on and we are proud to be supporting these companies on their road to sustainability. No action is too big or too small. Today, why don’t you head over to the World Food Safety Day website to see how you can get involved and together, we can bring about a more sustainable future.
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