Together for Better Food Safety: China Food Safety Day 2020

The 9th China Food Safety Day was held in Hangzhou on 18th November under the theme ‘Together for Better Food Safety’.

The China Food Safety Day was opened by the Chief Adviser of the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment & GFSI China Local Group Honourable Advisor, Professor Junshi Chen. He shared his latest thoughts on food safety and the concept of food safety co-governance.

Many from the prestigious speaker line-up shared their achievements and challenges around food safety. The Global Food Safety Initiative was praised as a leading food safety platform and highly acknowledged by members of The Consumer Goods Forum. The phrase ‘Once certified, accepted everywhere’ was mentioned many times by speakers. It illustrates the value that GFSI brings to businesses.

Food safety culture also came up many times on stage, and emphasised as an important part of food safety management and co-governance. The approaches to building food safety culture are different but all value the importance of education, training and verification along the value chain. Along with the increase of global business activities and new challenges around food safety comes the need for new technologies to be applied to the field of food safety as well as data and information sharing.

The China Food Safety Day in Hangzhou also included panel discussion sections around hot topics, such as:

• new thinking on food Safety co-governance
• food safety regulation building in the post-epidemic era
• remote audit – new practices in food safety audits
• food safety management, control methods and innovative measures in digital formats

Speakers shared their thoughts and understandings on new and emerging technologies, such as AI, which are relevant for food safety throughout the industry.

The annual China Food Safety Day is the opportunity for GFSI headquarters and the China Local Group to share their recent achievements and upcoming priorities. It demonstrates the collaboration between GFSI global and the China Local Group and clearly shows how important the support of CGF members is to implement the GFSI vision in China.

This event was the 9th China Food Safety Day and brought more than 200 participants who joined the event both on-site and online to share and learn. This is particularly encouraging in the year 2020 amidst the special circumstances of the pandemic. As a leading food safety event, the China Food Safety Day will continue to be a valuable tool for all stakeholders to explore the benefits of GFSI, share knowledge and strengthen their food safety networks.

This has been an excellent experience and I hope to see the community out in full force again for the 10th edition.

Junsheng (Enson) Wang
GFSI Consultant
Head of Quality Export,
Global Export and Partnerships
Tesco