Increased international food trade has led to new food safety challenges which have impacted movement of food products between countries. Availability of a variety of foods throughout the year and at lower prices has greatly benefited consumers worldwide. However, with food trade, the possibility of emerging and re-emerging food safety hazards and widespread contamination of food among various countries exists. Globalization of the food supply has raised the needs for: 1) defining the appropriate level of protection for foods from food safety hazards and using this level as a scientific basis for setting food safety standards, 2) using risk assessment at the international levels to evaluate the standards, and 3) providing food safety capacity building to ensure that the standards are met. This can help to open export markets and facilitate international trade. Setting food safety standards should result in food producers providing safer food to domestic and international markets; failure to do so will result in a negative public health impact and a wide range of business and economic losses. Our goal in this symposium is to discuss food safety challenges in relation to potential international trade barriers of food products. IAFP and non-IAFP members will address and offer potential solutions to the following areas: 1) lack of data for food safety risk assessments, 2) lack of resources to collect data particularly in developing countries, 3) lack of internationally accepted laboratory methods for quantifying/detecting hazards in imported/exported foods, and 4) how to improve collaboration/communication among international communities when making science-based decisions. Case examples will be included.

Presentations