TORONTO — Food safety professionals were encouraged to have an “inventory moment” during the opening session of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) symposium held here.
In Ivan Parkin’s speech, Sarah Cahill, a longtime IAFP member and Codex Alimentarius Senior Officer for Food Standards, said that given the many emerging challenges to food safety, people should take their time. He said we need to look at things from a different perspective. Check to see if enough is being done.
These challenges include climate change, new food sources and production systems, food waste, food availability, cell-based food, and more. Some of these areas have not previously been considered in terms of food standard setting.
This is the first time the event has been held in Canada since 2006. Nearly 3,100 attendees from 58 countries are expected, surpassing 2022 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Cahill’s presentation covered the driving forces behind food standards, their development, their impact, and what they look forward to.
“Everyone in the room knows the importance of why we have standards, but despite having standards, we still run into problems. Everyone needs to be on board regardless of their role in the supply chain.Food safety is still vague for some.When goals are needed with regards to food safety, standards are a good starting point and help people It will allow us to establish a framework for ensuring food safety,” she said.
According to Cahill, standards are part of our lives, whether they’re the standards we expect the products and services we use to adhere to or the standards we set for ourselves.
With the help of Codex, hundreds of guidelines and codes of practice, thousands of quantitative standards such as maximum levels of contaminants and food additives, and maximum residue limits for pesticides and veterinary drugs in food have been developed. increase.
Ensure standards are used
With the science available, standards can be developed where necessary, especially in response to food safety crises. The codex standards for melamine in food and the code of practice for minimizing the risk posed by Cronobacter in infant formula are Codex examples.
Cahill says there are five key ingredients to building useful and successful standards: clarity, commitment, science, expected outcomes, and perseverance.
“Science is the foundation for setting standards, but sometimes even science can’t cross the line. We can set a lot of standards, but they have to be implemented, and implementation presents a whole new set of challenges,” she said. I was.
Standards provide a basis for addressing challenges, but they do not work by themselves. Another thing to consider is the broader context of digitization, Cahill added, as not everyone is on the same level.
This year is the 60th anniversaryth It is the Codex Commission’s founding anniversary and José Emilio Esteban, Undersecretary for Food Safety at the Department of Agriculture and former Chairman of the Codex Food Safety Commission, commemorated the milestone held in Geneva earlier this month. I was one of the presenters at the event.
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