Established in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement, this year marks 20 years of safefood promoting food safety, and importantly North/South-working on the island of Ireland. During that time, we know that addressing food safety is a shared responsibility.
In 2003, our first major food safety awareness campaign It’s in your hands’ focused on food poisoning risks caused by cross-contamination and poor food safety habits at home. There was enormous public attention in 2012 when food safety was put under the blue UV light treatment in a domestic kitchen TV ad showing how easily Campylobacter can get transferred around the kitchen at home and amongst family members. A subsequent campaign ‘Don’t Take Risks’ reinforced the safety messages and concentrated on effective cooking, cleaning and hand washing, whilst the importance of food safety for vulnerable groups was emphasised in our ‘Listen to the voice’ campaign in 2017, which identified food safety risks among the over
65-year-olds.
Our current handwashing campaign ‘Rufus’ was created to help teach kids in pre-school settings across the island how to wash their hands as the best way to keep E.coli at bay. The ever-popular safefood Turkey Calculator, since its launch in 2012, has helped over 454,000 people cook their turkeys safely.
Over the years our food safety campaigns were also supported by ancillary printed, audio-visual and online resources available on our website. Campaigns were promoted at a various consumer events across the island such as the Balmoral Show in Belfast and the National Ploughing Championships.
Since its inception, safefood has established itself as a source of practical advice and training in food allergen control for both consumers and food supply chain personnel across the island. Between 2007 and 2009, we carried out a comprehensive training course in food allergen management for upwards of 500 EHOs and 170 third level catering lecturers. This was followed by a series of food allergen management workshops for early childhood providers in 2015 and 2016. Most recently, we organised a series of masterclasses in food allergen control for catering and hospitality students at various institutes throughout the island, and these courses have been complemented by no less than 10 conferences on the subject of food allergens, as well as six focused research projects and surveys, and a whole array of printed, audio-visual and online resources.
Our landmark research programme helps address knowledge gaps, informs policy and contributes to our award-winning campaigns. Since 2000, we have commissioned over 130 research projects covering various food related topics including microbiological and chemical risks and hazards, consumer behaviour, climate change, food defence, food allergy and intolerance issues amongst others. safefood has supported over 580 researchers who have published safefood-funded research in a wide range of scientific journals. Comprehensive research reports were produced for each project and are available on
our website.
Since its launch in 2005, the food safety programme ‘safefood for life’, certified by the Environmental Health Association of Ireland has been completed by over 36,500 transition year and leaving certificate applied students.
We’ve always been committed to working in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders across the island to tackle the public health challenges we all face. By sharing knowledge, we’ve built better links between professionals and created new networks. Our Knowledge Network is a community of professionals working in food businesses, environmental health, regulatory agencies, public health, food testing laboratories, research and education with over 3,200 members. Over the last three years alone, over 100 Knowledge Network events have been held across the island of Ireland with almost 4,000 participants.
In 2016, the safefood Knowledge Network initiated a pilot programme of small food safety workshops for food SMEs in partnership with Teagasc. This pilot was well received following which the programme was refined and a larger number of workshops held across the island in 2017, 2018 and 2019 with an accompanying significant number of food SMEs participating. In total, over 900 people attended industry-focused food hygiene-type events. A number of training resources including videos and courses have been developed which not alone builds on similar type events but enhances remote accessibility for members to enhance their skills and expand their range of expertise. We will expand our range of online resources for SMEs in the coming years, to support the face-to-face workshops and to cater for those who are unable to attend events in person.
safefood has a remit to promote scientific co-operation and linkages between laboratories and we’ve invested significant resources e.g. developing a reporting system for HSE and Belfast City Hospital food-testing laboratories for rapid access to laboratory results – in addition to sharing knowledge and experience on methodologies of testing and surveillance of food, as well as establishing and promoting IT solutions for official control laboratories. Over the past three years almost 500 laboratory personnel attended these events. Training covered key areas including quality, validation and an enhanced capability to generate paper-less reporting for the analysis of food samples. Other events assisted in capacity-building for laboratories e.g. a workshop on molecular testing methods, as well as a conference on whole genome sequencing.
Our early adoption of social and digital media has enabled us to look at food issues in new ways. From creating education tools to stimulate young minds, we continue to innovate in the conversations we have. Our social media campaigns like ‘Don’t wash raw chicken’ and particularly ‘Burger Fever’, which raised awareness of the risks of eating undercooked burgers was hugely successful; results clearly indicated that the campaign had wide reach and engagement among the target audience and had success in changing individuals’ knowledge, attitudes
and behaviours.
In those 20 years, our work has always reflected the lives that people lead and our efforts to support them.
For more information go to safefood.eu.
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