Global Food Safety Initiative Calls for Faster Action on Sustainable Development Goals

PARIS and BARCELONA, 29^th March 2022: The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) today launches a campaign to collate the views of the food safety community on the action needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals linked to food safety.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are designed to be a ‘blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all’. The survey of the GFSI community aims to understand how the industry is addressing the SDGs and what role GFSI can play in supporting retailers, manufacturers and suppliers in tackling them. It was launched today at the GFSI Conference, taking place in Barcelona this week. The results will be shared on World Food Safety Day on 7^th June, as part of GFSI’s ongoing commitment (and support of SDG 17 – power of partnerships) to collaboration with WHO, FAO and Codex to help inspire positive change around behaviours, policy and practice. This year’s theme is “Safer food, better health”.

A global structural shift in the food industry means that demand for the world’s food supply continues to grow. This is happening alongside the urgent need to preserve the planet, the requirement to shift to more sustainable production and consumption patterns, as well to make the food system less fragile and unequal; all while also combatting food fraud and managing the impacts of climate change. Due to their relation to food safety, the following SDGs are of particular interest:

• SDG 1 No poverty and SDG 2 Zero Hunger – food security and the end of poverty cannot be achieved without safer food. More is needed to strengthen capacities through the food system safety management of food business operators everywhere.
• SDG 12 Food waste and management of chemicals – there is at times a challenge to maintain food safety whilst reducing food waste. Food safety must also be maintained while keeping control of the contaminants that come from plastic recycling.
• SDG 6 Good water and sanitation – how can we maintain food safety while increasing water re-use.

GFSI is now GFSI is now urging even greater collaboration between the public and the private sectors, to strengthen the collective contribution to achieving the SDGs by 2030 and making a positive impact on food systems by working together to ensure better food safety management systems.

Sharing insight enables stakeholders across food safety to continually raise the bar and helps build trust with consumers and partners. This means companies, policymakers, IGOS, NGOs, academics and other stakeholders around the world setting aside differences to work together and understand each other’s for a safe global food supply.

Erica Sheward, Director of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), said, “To rise to the scale of the challenges ahead, the community must pull together and take action together to ensure safe food for people everywhere – building trust and transparency within the industry and protecting consumers.

Everyone has the right to safe, nutritious and nourishing food and we are committed to making food safety everyone’s business. We are calling on industry leaders from across the whole food sector to reflect together on how we can all go further to achieve the SDGs ahead of the 2030 deadline.”

The GFSI Community can take part in the call to action via the GFSI Conference app as well as from April 1st to April 29th via an online survey on mygfsi.com.

The GFSI is a landmark initiative of The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a global industry network working to support better lives through better business.

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For more information please contact: Natalie Cush / NatalieCush@foster.co.uk

About the Global Food Safety Initiative

• The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI; the Coalition) is a CEO-led Coalition of Action from The Consumer Goods Forum, bringing together 33 retailers and manufacturers and an extended food safety community to help oversee food safety standards for businesses and help provide access to safe food for people everywhere.
• As one of the world’s largest networks to help achieve safe food , GFSI is committed to making food safety everyone’s business and the Coalition members are addressing challenges facing food safety systems in their supply chains and the markets they operate in, and are helping to raise the food safety bar globally.
• Its ambition is to strengthen and harmonise food safety systems so they are able to feed the growing, global population and develop markets that can deliver food safely, no matter where in the world the consumer is.
• To learn more, visit mygfsi.com.

About The Consumer Goods Forum

• • The Consumer Goods Forum (“CGF”) is a global, parity-based industry network that is driven by its members to encourage the global adoption of practices and standards that serves the consumer goods industry worldwide.
  • It brings together the CEOs and senior management of some 400 retailers, manufacturers, service providers, and other stakeholders across 70 countries, and it reflects the diversity of the industry in geography, size, product category and format.
  • Its member companies have combined sales of EUR 3.5 trillion and directly employ nearly 10 million people, with a further 90 million related jobs estimated along the value chain.
  • It is governed by its Board of Directors, which comprises 58 manufacturer and retailer CEOs.
  • For more information, please visit: www.theconsumergoodsforum.com