World Food Safety Day: The Unsung Heroes Defending Our Dinner

Written by Julia Johnson, Risk and Crisis Director.

This World Food Safety Day (7 June), let’s recognize the unsung heroes of the food industry—the technical teams who work tirelessly to keep our food safe. Their challenge? A growing list of external threats, often beyond their control.

To stay ahead, they must constantly scan the horizon for emerging risks, react with agility, and remain perpetually vigilant.

Here’s 10 less-than-obvious current factors with the potential to cause food safety problems.

Firstly, global instability such as:

1. Geopolitical disruption   

2. Climate change   

3. Trade tariffs

These three macro-economic factors can mean businesses need to find alternative sources of ingredients, either as a result of inaccessibility (from war or sanctions or for cost reasons) or poor harvests. Recent examples include shortages of sunflower oil from Ukraine and rice from Italy following a drought. Global scarcity can encourage food fraud and with it food safety risks, so businesses must employ strict VACCP protocols. More generally they need to consider contamination risks, from growing and processing practices in alternative suppliers.

Government policy also has the potential to create food safety challenges:

4. Sugar tax

The British sugar tax, which could be extended beyond fizzy drinks to cover pre-packaged milkshakes and lattes under new Government proposals, has driven a move to artificial sweeteners which, microbiologically-speaking, brings a whole new set of food safety challenges. R&D and marketing departments may not be aware of these, so it falls to the technical team to protect food safety.

Change can of course be positive, but handled poorly it becomes another threat to food safety:

5. Culture deterioration   

6. Product innovation   

A strong culture is key to maintaining food safety – which is why it’s now an integral part of food industry standards. But any change in culture such as through a company merger, new senior leadership team etc. can quickly lead to a drop-off in standards and then food safety issues, if not carefully managed. It’s essential to plan internal communications wisely and keep ahead of a deteriorating culture.

Likewise, product innovation is fundamental to survival, but technical teams must collaborate with R&D colleagues to ensure new product development (NPD) doesn’t introduce new allergens to the factory, or create unnecessary production challenges with food safety implications.

Closer to home are commercial realities:

7. Cost of living crisis

8. Time pressure

Keeping customers, consumers and shareholders happy in the current economic climate means businesses are looking to reduce costs, often resulting in leaner working and ultimately more pressure on employees. Linked to this is a lack of time available for training, proper root cause analysis and learning lessons from actual food safety events and near misses.

Last, but certainly not least, are facilities failures:

9. Business interruptions

10. Cyber attacks

Unexpected events—from power outages to cyber threats—could disrupt production and even compromise recipe integrity. Some cyber-attacks have been capable of altering formulations and controlling equipment, meaning digital security must now be a food safety priority.

Food safety has long been about more than hygiene—and now it’s about resilience. So this World Food Safety Day, spare a thought for the technical teams battling these hidden risks to ensure every meal on your plate is safe to eat.