Whilst producing food sustainably is a major issue, food safety needs to be central to any debate to ensure innovations in production are matched with robust food safety risk assessments to protect public health.
This is according to Dr Pamela Byrne, CEO Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), who was speaking to over 300 delegates at The Science of Food Safety – What’s Our Future? at the Convention Centre Dublin.
Dr Byrne stressed that, as ways to produce food evolve to feed an increasing global population, scientific research is critical in enabling our regulatory controls to adapt and develop so that we can protect consumers.
Science & Sustainable Food
According to Byrne, we are at an important milestone in the evolution of our food systems whereby Science is required to create more sustainable, nutritious and healthier.
However, she warned that the rapid speed of change in production processes must be mirrored by robust analysis and oversight to ensure food integrity and safety.
“Like all food regulators across the EU, we face the challenge that we must expand our capacity and capabilities so that we have the right skills and research to be able to analyse these new food processes allowing us to continually protect our consumers,” Dr Byrne said.
“Now more than ever, with the increasing globalisation of food and the creation of food in new ways based on scientific advancements, there is a need for increased focus on ensuring a secure, safe, nutritious, and authentic food supply chain.”
Dr Bernhard Url, Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and keynote speaker for the event, agreed that it was important to trust in science aimed at the design of more sustainable food systems.
“Food in Europe has never been safer,” Url said. “This is because science plays a crucial role in the way the food system within the European Union is set-up.”
“A system that is worth 4 billion euros in turnover every year. A system that most importantly delivers on citizens’ health,” he said.
“Looking at the present and future challenges, and the more and more pressing questions on how to feed a growing global population using fewer resources and restoring at the same time a degraded environment, I believe solutions are found again in the scientific process,” he said.
© 2019 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
