On the 7 June each year, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization celebrate World Food Safety Day (WFSD).

In 2025, the theme is Food safety: science in action. This draws attention to the importance of scientific research and knowledge in making informed decisions about food, with the goal of reducing illness, saving lives, and in cutting costs.

Food safety is a unique topic, and failure to manage it correctly impacts all consumers. WFSD 2025 highlights the key role that science plays in advancing research and knowledge designed to safeguard the integrity and safety of our food supply.

The output of this science is intelligence and guidance that is utilised by food businesses, governments and regulators, and consumers. Food can only be safe if that guidance and advice is put into action through the development of sound policies, the implementation of process controls and hygienic practices, the provision of clear advice on risks, and supporting consumers to safely handle, prepare and store food.

Without science, it would not be possible to maintain food safety at all those stages along complex food supply chains. Science allows us to monitor incursions of zoonotic diseases, control food contamination, understand the complex growth requirements of pathogens, and develop strategies to prevent and control foodborne illness. It assists us to manage the use of chemicals such as additives and preservatives in the production of safe foods and how to avoid environmental contamination. Plus it enables us to address the presence of allergens in our food supply and assist consumers to make well-informed choices.

The mission of the AIFST is to empower the agrifood science community through education and collaboration, championing an evidence-based, innovative agrifood industry to address future food needs safely and responsibly. Food scientists objectively develop and evaluate scientific data on hazards and risks connected to food, which they utilise to process and preserve foods, and consistently perform those chemical and microbiological tests to determine whether a food is safe for human consumption. 

Food safety is everyone's business— from farmers to food workers, retailers, food preparers, and consumers. Science underpins all the processes that see our agricultural commodities transformed into food on the table of 27 million Australians. 

Op Ed: Deon Mahoney, Scientific Advisor, AIFST 

https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/world-food-safety-day-2025-science-in-action

https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/publications/annual-cost-foodborne-illness-australia-food-commodities-and-pathogens

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/2A15CD097063EF40CA2587CE008354F1/$File/monitoring_the_incidence_and_causes_of_disease_potentially_transmitted_by_food_in_australia_annual_report_of_the_ozfoodnet_network_2017.pdf