Food Safety Culture in Africa’s Formal & Informal Food Markets

Food safety remains a challenge for any organization involved in the food supply chain. Africans, with an estimated 137,000 deaths and over 91 million illnesses per year, bear the largest burden of foodborne diseases worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, while a lot of effort is put into food safety processes and procedures, many of these don’t account for a significant risk: human behavior. This is where creating a food safety culture comes in handy.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) defines Food Safety Culture as: “shared values, beliefs, and norms that affect mindset and behavior toward food safety in, across, and throughout an organization.”

Studying foodborne incidents, it is noticed that most are caused by fiascos of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and rarely by food safety system failures. It shows the importance of comprehending people’s behaviors and the antecedents that influence their actions and attitudes.

This has proven to be especially necessary for Africa’s informal food market which occupies a major market share of the continent’s food system yet remains largely unregulated.

In this webinar, you will learn from a number of industry experts, researchers, suppliers of technologies, and government agencies, in a number of sessions on the following key issues:

• Leadership and Governance: What are the 5 key things that the big retailers have done right in upholding food safety culture? What are the gaps?
• Regulatory and Policy: What are the basic food safety controls (regulations & policies) that the government can implement to ensure food safety in formal SMEs & Informal food markets?
• Infrastructure: What are some of the infrastructure and resources that both the local & national governments can put in place to boost food safety & quality in SMEs  & Informal food markets? 
• Innovations and technologies: What are some of the technologies & ideas that the private sector can invest in to solve the food safety challenges in the informal food markets & formal SMEs?
• Collaborations and Partnerships: How do we enhance private and public sector partnerships to deliver food quality in informal markets/formal SMEs?
• Training and capacity building: What is the opportunity around training & capacity building of informal/formal SMEs to enhance food safety?