A Big Thank You from the Mars Global Food Safety Center to You! Here’s to Our Associates Around the World Who Helped Make World Food Safety Day a Celebration to Remember!

Here at the Mars Global Food Safety Center (GFSC) we want to say a big thank you to all those Associates who joined us to celebrate the second annual World Food Safety Day (WFSD) on 7th June.

This year’s theme: ‘Food safety, everyone’s business’, was about us all pulling together to raise awareness of  the critical role of food safety and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks.

The Mars GFSC was honoured to partner with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to mark this important day and shine a spotlight on the impact of COVID-19 in vulnerable countries and urge all stakeholders to act urgently to address supply chain and food system issues. As the pandemic escalates, populations already malnourished, weak and vulnerable to disease could face famine as the virus threatens lives and livelihoods along with the trading network they rely on for survival.

Ready access to safe and nutritious food is a basic human right. Yet every year around the planet over 420,000 people die and some 600 million people - almost 1 in ten in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food.  Whether we grow, process, transport, store, distribute, sell, prepare, serve or consume food, we all have a role to play in keeping food safe.

 

The time to act is now

Over the past few weeks Mars teamed up with WFP to share insights on several platforms, as part of our commitment to ensuring safe food for all for a better world tomorrow. Your efforts in sharing and liking our media helped to make the day a resounding success!

The world we want tomorrow starts today

Celebrating #WorldFoodSafetyDay with partners such as WFP reinforces our commitment to partnership and collaboration to support the wellbeing of people across the global food supply chain by helping to ensure safe food for all.

Please help us to raise awareness

Here are just some of the highlights. Please continue to help us raise awareness by liking or sharing the media below and spread the word on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

 ‘Assuring food safety across the pipeline’. Dr. Abigail Stevenson, outgoing Director at the Mars GFSC and Vice President of MARI, took part in a WFP-led virtual panel and spoke on the importance of collaboration as COVID-19 accelerates across the world.

Dr. Stevenson also penned a blog on Mars.com explaining why COVID-19 demands collaboration and highlights our innovative solutions and technologies: ‘COVID-19 accelerates food safety challenges but collaboration and technology offer hope’.

Dave Crean, Vice President of Corporate R&D and Chief Science Officer at Mars, took part in a panel led by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): ‘Food safety in the COVID-19 Era and beyond: Solutions to strengthen food systems for resilient food security’ examining the impact of COVID-19 on food supply, systems, people, environment, and business. WFP and the World Health Organization also participated. Dave Crean also shared his thoughts on the impact of COVID-19 on the global food supply chain with Ethical Corporations on sustainability and why we must act now on food safety. Click here to read and share the article. 

Bob Baker, Mars Corporate Food Safety Science Capabilities Director, spoke with New Food magazine about the Mars Five Principles, global quality culture and the critical role of technology and collaboration in tackling global food safety challenges.