World Food Safety Day report 2021 – an overview of festivity and creativity

Over 300 events and activities were organized in at least 90 countries to celebrate World Food Safety Day this year. The creative, informative and inclusive ways in which government authorities, food chain actors, consumers, academics and others worked to promote food safety have been captured in a 24-page report. This report, now available in all six official UN languages, was launched during a 24-hour ‘Tweet-a-thon for food safety’ led by the Codex Alimentarius Twitter account, @FAOWHOCodex, on 7 September.

In hourly tweets, the Tweet-a-thon showcased some of the many videos, photos, competitions, webinars and events that made up World Food Safety 2021 as well as timeless food safety resources.

The report offers a glimpse into World Food Safety Day 2021, featuring an array of activities and the media attention they received, the reach achieved across social media and insights on why this is an important day to celebrate. The campaign slogan, “Food safety is everyone’s business”, and this year’s theme, “Safe food now for a healthy tomorrow”, inspired online discussions, lectures, videos, workshops, staff trainings, school lessons and competitions.

Of particular note in this, the third year of celebrations, was how creatively the World Food Safety Day messages were conveyed. Posters and photographs produced as the result of competitions complement the countless GIFs, animations and images posted across social media platforms. Ultimately these efforts reached many millions of online users - the #WorldFoodSafetyDay hashtag recorded an exposure of 311.2 million.

The final article reminds readers that World Food Safety Day is meant to set in motion a year-round effort to promote and ensure safe food for all.

World Food Safety Day is facilitated jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) with support from the Codex Alimentarius Secretariat and the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) Secretariat.

Read the report in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish