Join Us to Help Raise Awareness of the Critical Role of Food Safety on World Food Safety Day

The second World Food Safety Day (WFSD) will be celebrated on June 7 to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.  In this year’s theme, titled: ‘Food Safety, Everyone’s Business’, WFSD is calling upon countries, decision makers, the private sector, civil society, UN organizations and the general public to share the responsibility of keeping food safe from farm to fork.

COVID-19 Accelerates Food Security Challenges

Marking this important day has never been more important as COVID-19 impacts countries around the world. Food safety is one of the fundamentals of food security and it is an area of public health relevant to everybody on the planet. Developing countries already devastated by climate change, conflict and economic difficulties are ill-equipped to cope with the pandemic and a second crisis of famine is starting to emerge as a result of blockages in the food supply chain.

Mars is raising awareness of food safety and food security on several platforms, as part of our commitment to ensuring safe food for all for a better world tomorrow.

Collaboration is Key

Mars began partnering with World Food Programme in 2015, sharing our quality and food safety knowledge and helping improve the resilience of supply chains in vulnerable countries in Africa and Asia. This year, $2million of the $20million Mars has donated to support the people, pets and communities most affected by COVID-19, has been given to aid WFP in the transport and delivery of critical supplies of emergency food and life-saving equipment to hospitals in Africa as they respond to the pandemic. 

On World Food Safety Day, we want to say a heartfelt thank you to Mars Associates, WFP and all those organizations and academic institutions with whom we partner, and all those working tirelessly to help ensure safe food for all.

Dave Crean, Vice President of Corporate R&D & Chief Science Officer at Mars, says: “World Food Safety Day shines a spotlight on the food safety challenges facing the global food supply chain today and calls for a global commitment to ensure safe food for all.  

“Safe food is critical to promoting health and ending hunger. There is no food security without food safety and in a world where the food supply chain has become more complex and interconnected any adverse event, such as a pandemic, quickly highlights the fragility and weaknesses of the current system and results in negative impacts on public health, trade, and economies - instead of taking two steps forward and perhaps one back, the world takes three steps back. The global food supply chain is a shared responsibility. We are all interconnected, no country is exempt from food safety challenges, and no single entity can solve the global problem of food safety. We need to collaborate to resolve the issues and terrible consequences that contaminated food causes for billions of people.”

 

How to Participate in WFSD?

Over the next week, the Mars Global Food Safety Center will leverage this moment to share how Mars is addressing food safety and security challenges with cutting edge science, technology and through collaborative partnerships across the industry through storytelling and social sharing. 

Please join us and help raise awareness of the #WorldFoodSafetyDay by reading “COVID-19 accelerates food safety challenges: collaboration and technology offer hope”.  Dr. Abigail Stevenson, Director of the Mars Global Food Safety Center, explains why COVID-19 demands collaboration and highlights Mars GFSC’s innovative solutions and technologies.