In the modern world, food regulation and safety play a vital role in safeguarding public health and well-being. With globalised food production and distribution, ensuring that the food we consume is safe has become increasingly crucial. On July 20th and 21st, New Delhi is set to play host to the Global Food Regulators Summit for the very first time as part of a G20 event. The venue, Manekshaw Auditorium is set to host delegates from stakeholders representing over 40 countries and will also be a platform to unveil an integrated digital dashboard that will serve as a central platform for food-related regulations and standards which is being referred to as a ‘food-o-copoeia’.
This is the first time the summit has been held outside Rome, Italy and was spearheaded by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. It is designed to address current and potential challenges around food safety on a global scale and over the course of 2 days will feature a number of activities, keynote addresses, sessions with food regulators and interactive sessions.
The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, unveiled the Summit logo for the summit while highlighting the importance of this event to address the topic of food safety and security. “It will also provide an effective understanding of compliance requirements and mutual exchange of best practices, experiences and success stories on food safety norms/regulations, explore opportunities to identify collaborative work areas to establish synergies among global regulators/agencies and develop tools and techniques for information sharing,” stated the ministry in a release.
Delegates and representatives from 25 leading international research institutes and universities, and 30 international organisations will also be in attendance including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) of Germany, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (USA), Health Canada, the Australian Institute of Food Safety and Technology, and more.
As the second leading producer of milk, vegetable cultivation and horticulture crops in the world, Dr. Mandaviya hopes this event will serve to strengthen frameworks both internally and on an international level. At this forum, issues around food safety and regulatory matters and open up conversations around best practices, international collaboration and the tools that we as a global community can work on to create more synergy between international regulatory bodies for the betterment of the world.