The Codex Alimentarius Commission Chairperson, Steve Wearne, was “surprised and honoured” to be awarded a certificate marking his election as a Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFST), following his delivery of the distinguished lecture at the IAFSTinduction ceremony of the 22nd World Congress of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST).

In the lecture, Wearne gave his personal thoughts on the need for Codex to take an integrated approach to the work of food standards setting. “We must think about how food safety, food security and sustainability are inextricably interlinked … we need to integrate our thinking,” he said. “In Codex, there is a growing realisation that timely and appropriate international food safety standards may support development and implementation of initiatives that improve food security and sustainability,” he continued, and explored the challenges and possibilities facing Codex if such a path were to be taken. He referred to the “triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, pollution and waste” as drivers behind the need to ask: “how do we design integrative structures and approaches that help us to make the best decisions and take the right actions to reach our overarching global goals?”

He concluded his lecture by saying that, in his view, new approaches to risk management are required, “if we are to respond to complexity and change in the world around us. We need to think how we will optimise our impacts across food safety, security and sustainability, integrate the outputs of established and emerging approaches to the assessment of different attributes of foods, and incorporate learnings from other disciplines, including decision science,” he said.

Steve Wearne has been Chairperson of CAC since 2021 and will complete his mandate at CAC47.

IUFoST is a Codex Observer organization.

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Photo © IUFoST
Caption: Steve Wearne (C) holds his certificate, with IUFoST Board Director, Dr Ogugua Charles Aworh (L) and IUFoST President, Professor Aman Wirakartakusumah (R)