Know your Environment: The Essential Role of Environmental Monitoring for Ensuring Food Safety
April 7, 2015 was World Health Day--an annual event established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to draw attention to a topic of global significance. This year, the day was dedicated to food safety. In selecting this year’s focus, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, cited the need to “catalyze action to put measures in place that will improve safety of food throughout the food chain from production to consumption”.[1] She went on to note that “food can become contaminated at any point of production and distribution, and the primary responsibility lies with food producers”.
Efforts to minimize the risk of contamination are essential as a single event can have widespread impact. Consider just two recent examples. The 2011 Escherichia coli outbreak--linked to contaminated sprouts--originated in Germany and led to cases in eight countries in Europe and North America and 53 deaths. This outbreak resulted in $1.3 billion in losses for farmers and industries and $236 million in emergency aid payments to 22 European Union (EU) member states.