On June 7th, World Food Safety Day is celebrated, an event established by the UN General Assembly in 2018. This year’s theme is “Food Safety: Prepare for the Unexpected”, emphasizing the importance of preparing for food safety incidents, regardless of their severity.
On the occasion of World Food Safety Day, InfoCons provides consumers with the European InfoCons App, a useful tool for making informed choices regarding food products.
With the help of the Free European InfoCons App, consumers can check if the products they purchase comply with safety standards! In the Alerts section of the App, citizens have direct access to alerts for both food and non-food products at the European Union level.
Through the Alerts section of the European InfoCons App, consumers have direct and transparent access to food alerts, updated daily and accompanied by details such as:
- The date the alert was issued (from most recent to oldest);
- Explicit description of the product;
- Targeted countries;
- Identified issue with the product;
- Risk level.
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The European InfoCons App is a useful and free tool available in 33 languages. With the app, consumers can make their own decisions about what they eat by simply scanning the product label’s barcode. Thus, anyone can access the following useful information in their native language:
- Scanning the barcodes of food products to find out the ingredients, number and type of food additives, allergens, amount of sugar, salt, calories;
- Customizing the app for those with specific health issues and special dietary needs by setting the amounts of salt, sugar, allergens, and types and numbers of additives;
- A calculator where you can insert the quantity of consumed product to instantly find out the amount of salt and sugar, the number of calories, as well as the physical activities needed to burn those calories (walking, running, cycling);
- Saving the scanned product in the “Saved Products” section, allowing consumers to create their own shopping list, daily/weekly menu, recipes;
- From the “Saved Products” section, consumers can find out the total number of additives, as well as the total amount of sugar and salt in the consumed products;
- Real-time alerts for food and non-food products at the European Union level;
- A terminology dictionary in the fields of consumer protection, environment, banking and finance, labor, insurance, energy, etc.
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This year’s theme for World Food Safety Day emphasizes food safety practices in situations where there is a health risk associated with food consumption. A food incident can occur, for example, due to accidents, insufficient control, food fraud, or natural events.
Although preparing for managing food safety incidents requires sustained efforts from decision-makers, food safety authorities, farmers, and food industry operators, consumers can also play an active role.
Food safety saves lives. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), each year, approximately 600 million people fall ill from around 200 different types of foodborne diseases, especially young people and those without financial resources. Additionally, foodborne diseases are responsible for 420,000 preventable deaths annually.
World Food Safety Day is an important way to: raise awareness of food safety issues, demonstrate how food safety can prevent illnesses, discuss collaborative approaches to improve food safety across various sectors, and promote different solutions to enhance food safety.
Read also : The InfoCons App User Guide
Source: World Health Organization (WHO)
InfoCons – European Organization for Consumers Protection and Promotion of Programs and Strategies , a full member of the World Organization Consumers International, founding member of the Federation of Consumer Associations, and member of ANEC.