Italy’s UNPISI hosts World Food Safety Day webinar
On 7 June the National Union of Health Inspection Personnel of Italy (UNPISI) held a World Food Safety Day webinar entitled "Cyber Food Controls: the new frontiers of official control." The webinar was moderated by Giovanni Rossi, the President of UNPISI. The speakers were lawyer, Pasquale Iodice and Maurizio Martinelli, a food hygiene instructor.
The objective of the webinar was to analyze the regulation of the online sale of products intended for human consumption, with particular reference to food operators and institutions responsible for health hygiene supervision.
In the webinar, they spoke about the rising demand for online food products and the increased onus this places on food authorities to adapt their traditional inspection and sampling activities accordingly.
They identified the following potential health dangers in food sourced online:
- non-compliant consumer information (labeling, allergens, nutrition declaration, etc.)
- unknown product origin and questionable traceability
- product safety (ingredients): eg. food supplements
- storage of food at unsafe temperatures (cold chain)
In conclusion, it was agreed that there is a need to create specialized multidisciplinary teams and focus on investigating cases related to food fraud or serious food incidents. They also identified a need to specialize in areas of particular concern, such as dietary supplements.