7 June – World Food Safety Day
The theme of this year’s edition of World Food Safety Day is “Safer Food, Better Health”, meant to draw attention to the importance of food safety for human health and general well-being. Implementation of these assumptions requires meeting specific conditions.
One of the conditions is to transform food systems to provide better health in a sustainable way to prevent most foodborne illnesses. Sustainable production is a broad and multi-topic issue involving people and entities responsible for designing food systems policy.
Sustainable food production is also responsible for the management of waste that is generated in every branch of the food sector. Food producers are aware of the fact that the proper management of waste from the production plant will allow them to expand the range of products or enable the production of biogas. As a result, waste will not end up in landfill sites and pose a threat to the environment and people. As it turns out, waste, especially those from the fruit and vegetable industry, has a rich composition in terms of nutritional value and the content of biologically-active compounds. This allows the use of waste to obtain specific substances, new food, feed manufacturing, fertilizers, or as a nutrient medium in bioreactors.
The circular economy and responsible food production are topics that require immediate action, the basis of which is the education of the entire society.
Packaging is also important in both areas. A lot of efforts are made to reduce the impact of packaging on the environment and to produce them using more sustainable materials. The circular economy, also known as circularity, helps to minimize the consumption of natural resources, as well as their reuse. The idea of a closed circuit is to take care of sustainable development at every stage of a product’s life – from its concept to consumption. The changes are not only visible in action but also in thinking about our own business, respecting the needs of future generations.
Regarding sustainable development and minimizing the negative impact on the environment, non-thermal technologies play an increasingly important role in food production. Traditional methods of heat treatment, such as cooking, blanching, or drying, often require large amounts of energy and can lead to loss of nutrients, sensory changes, and waste generation. Non-thermal technologies offer an alternative approach that contributes to sustainable food production. Non-thermal technologies include a variety of methods and processes, such as cold extraction, ultrasounds, high pressure, pulsed electric field system, and membrane process. The use of these technologies allows for minimizing the use of high temperatures and shortening the processing time, which helps to save energy. Moreover, non-thermal technologies help preserve the nutritional value of the products as they minimize the degradation of nutrients such as vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants. Another advantage of non-thermal technologies is the reduction of the negative impact on the sensory attributes of food.
Unlike traditional methods of heat treatment, non-thermal technologies help to preserve the natural taste, aroma, or texture of food products, which contributes to the improvement of sensory quality. Currently, food is processed in huge quantities and shipped over long distances. Comprehensive cooperation and involvement of all entities in the food supply chain, as well as proper governance and legislation, are essential to ensure its safety and, consequently, the health of consumers.
Food and human nutrition can be explored from the theoretical and, above all, practical side by choosing studies at the Faculty of Food Technology in the following majors: Food Safety, Food Technology and Human Nutrition, Commodity Science and Food Marketing, Food Sciences: Technology and Nutrition (in English). Details: https://wtz.sggw.edu.pl/studies/?lang=en
Moreover, at the Institute of Veterinary Medicine, there is the Department of Food Hygiene and Public Health Protection. The Department conducts research and teaching classes in the field of hygiene and microbiological safety of food of animal origin. Details: https://imw.sggw.edu.pl/?lang=en