New collaborative research targets proper food safety

PS Peter Kaberia

Industrialization PS Peter Kaberia at a press conference after a joint meeting with Kebs and manufacturers on edible oils in his office on September 26, 2022

Photo credit: Diana Ngila | Nation Media Group

That food safety is at the core of the very existence of humanity is an undoubted truism. Food safety is at the very root of a healthy populace, needed to inject impetus in the socioeconomic growth of the global community.

Countries the world over have come up with robust checks to ensure their people are served with safe, quality food without the usual contaminations of unscrupulous manufacturers and traders. Talk of universal health coverage by the government can be well collaborated by the adoption of proper food safety regulations and good research in this area.

As a scientific discipline, food safety draws from a wide range of academic fields, including chemistry, microbiology and engineering. These diverse schools of thought converge to ensure food processing safety during sourcing, manufacturing, preparation, storage or sale. In this sense, food safety is a systemic approach to hygiene and accountability that concerns every aspect of the global food industry.

Preventing foodborne illnesses through robust food safety practices at all levels of the food chain would contribute greatly to universal health. The diseases encompass a wide range, from diarrhoea to cancers, and are caused by contamination of food at any stage—production, delivery and consumption.

Of late, there have been disturbingly frequent cases of food recalls at the national and county levels, triggered by suspicion that they do not meet the standards for safe human consumption.

WHO says Africa has the highest per capita incidents of food illnesses, causing 137,000 deaths, and 91 million cases of diseases yearly. The health costs and socioeconomic losses are astronomical.

However, most foodborne illnesses can be prevented. The Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) has been at the vanguard of the war against poor food safety practices and has, indeed, recalled from the market many food products that were deemed unsafe.

It is through this spirit of ensuring that Kenyans are served morsels on their table that are safe that Kebs recently invited food safety microbiology researchers from Washington State University (WSU) to explore measures geared towards prevention of obesity, foodborne illnesses and metabolic diseases.

Food products are among the most-traded commodities. As markets become increasingly globalised, and as the world’s population grows, the global food supply chain will only continue to increase in scale and complexity. Precisely because of these megatrends influencing mass production and distribution of food, food safety compliance is vital.

The Kebs-WSU initiative follows the need for experts to collaborate on research on food safety, which has significant and wide-ranging socioeconomic effects for human welfare and economic performance. We need to leverage technology and advanced detection and surveillance techniques that allow inspectors and other enforcers capabilities for on-the-spot rapid testing and realtime data transmission for swift action to protect public health.

Lt-Col (Rtd) Njiraini is the managing director of [email protected].  @bnjinu