Food Safety, everyone’s business

  7th June , 2019 ,       Hits: 1752

Kampala, 7^th June 2019 - The Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) joins the rest of the world to celebrate the World Food Safety Day.

This is the first World Food Safety Day to be celebrated globally since the United Nations General Assembly, adopted a resolution proclaiming it on 20th December, 2018.

This year’s theme: “Food Safety, everyone’s business” is a call to action for everyone to be involved in promoting food safety to prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks. As we celebrate, it is a time to raise awareness on food safety standards and their relevance in consumer protection.

Food safety is key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, promoting good health and wellbeing, while ensuring sustainable consumption and production.

In line with our mandate of developing and promoting standards for quality products and services, we have developed 3,621 standards (as at 31^st March 2019), of which 1,317 are compulsory standards designed to protect the health and safety of consumers. The food safety standards are both general and product specific. Some of the notable general food safety standards include:

• US 45: 2019 - General standard for food additives specifies guidelines for the use of food additives and lists safety levels suitable for use in specific food products or food product categories.
• US 28:2002 - Code of practice for hygiene in the food and drink manufacturing industry specifies minimum requirements for factories and employees engaged in the manufacture, processing, packaging, and delivery of foods for human consumption.
• US CAC/RCP 39:1993 - Code of hygienic practice for precooked and cooked foods in mass catering deals with the hygienic requirements for cooking raw foods and handling cooked and precooked foods intended for feeding large groups of people.
• More information on food safety standards is available on: https://webstore.unbs.go.ug

As we celebrate the world food safety day, we would like to call upon consumers, manufacturers, traders and other government agencies to use standards to improve food safety and combat outbreak of food borne diseases in Uganda and the rest of the world.