India has hosted the second annual Global Food Regulators Summit in New Delhi, bringing together global experts on a vast array of subjects, with the aim of “exchanging information on food product regulatory and safety requirements, with an emphasis on fostering cooperation between nations in the realm of food safety standards.” The event was organized by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), together with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With participants from 70 countries, the summit aimed to address key challenges for food regulators from conformity assessment to monitoring and the challenges of data sharing and sustainable packaging to nutritional challenges.

Codex also joined the conversation with current Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) Chairperson, Steve Wearne who gave special addresses at both the inaugural and the valedictory ceremonies, and keynote addresses for the sessions on “Regulating Food Safety and Security: A Global Perspective” and the “Regional Conclave - Enhancing Regional Collaboration and Harmonization in the Standard Setting Process”. In his keynote on a global perspective to regulating food safety, Wearne, called for transformational thinking: “We should search for a common scale amongst the various dimensions that would guide us towards an optimum outcome, optimising for food safety, security and sustainability,” he said, “We should use our own experience of applying the risk analysis paradigm within our own area, food safety, to support those whose task it is to adapt that paradigm to the task of making food policy choices that balance a wider range of considerations.”

The WHO Director-General gave a video message for the inaugural ceremony and Codex Secretary, Sarah Cahill, delivered the contextual setting for a discussion on “Sustainable Food Packaging: Policy, Innovation and Compliance”, and was also a discussant on the panel entitled “Enhancing Regional Collaboration and Harmonization in the Standard Setting Process”. She was joined at the event by several current and former CAC Chairpersons and Vice-Chairpersons , and representatives of the Codex parent organizations, FAO and WHO.

The Codex Secretary made the case for transforming approaches to food packaging, pointing out that it has been transformational for food supply chains, “but now food packaging is one of those areas that has to be transformed.” She went on to say: “a holistic or life cycle approach needs to be integral to the way forward such that all stakeholders are contributing to the solution in a collaborative manner, that the solutions are addressing emerging issues such as we are seeing with microplastics, and at the same time we are ensuring that we are not contributing to new food safety issues.” This will require efforts and collaboration across different multilateral fora.

Current CAC Chairperson Steve Wearne (L) attended the conference, along with former Chairpersons Awilo Ochieng Pernet (C) and Sanjay Dave (R)

CAC Vice-Chairperson Raj Rajasekar gave the keynote address for the session on “New Age Analysis in Food Testing” and contributed as a discussant in panels on “Sustainable Food Packaging: Policy, Innovation and Compliance” and the “Regional Conclave Enhancing Regional Collaboration and  Harmonization In Standard Setting Process”. In addition, former Codex Chairperson, Awilo Ochieng Pernet, moderated the roundtable conference on the same Regional Conclave and former Chairperson Sanjay Dave also contributed to that same panel.

FAO representatives contributing to discussions were Takayuki Hagiwara, FAO representative to India, Sridhar Dharmapuri, Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer, Asia-Pacific and Giovanna Sartori, Food Safety Specialist. WHO representatives at the event included Roderico H. Ofrin, WHO Representative to India, Gyanendra Gongal, Senior Public Health Officer, World Health Emergency, South East Asia Regional Office (SEARO) and Luz Maria De-Regil, Unit Head of Multisectoral Actions in Food Systems, Department of Nutrition and Food Safety.

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The Global Food Regulator’s Summit 2024 (GFRS 2024)