Food safety and food defence during the world cup

The Food Safety Initiative of the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa in cooperation with the Directorate: Food Control of the Department of Health and the World Health Organization would like to send this gentle but important reminder to all businesses in the food production sector to be on their best food safety behaviour during the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup, which will be hosted by South Africa from 11 June to 11 July. Besides the obvious public health and economic implications of a major foodborne disease incident, including damage to the brand name of an implicated product, it should be kept in mind that during the World Cup event, South Africa will be under an intense media spotlight, which may shape the world’s perceptions of South Africa for years to come. While preparations have been underway for a number of years now, the mentioned organizations wish to take this opportunity to encourage all food businesses, and especially those directly involved in the provision of food for the World Cup, to review their food safety practices and procedures to be certain that everything possible has been done to ensure that South Africa will enjoy an incident-free World Cup. 

For those with advanced food safety management systems, such as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), the monitoring of critical limits and corrective actions should have heightened vigilance. In general, the food sector should focus on the basic food safety principles that are embodied in the WHO Fives Keys to Safer Food*, which are summarized as: 

1. Keep clean

2. Separate raw and cooked

3. Cook thoroughly

4. Keep food at safe temperatures

5. Use safe water and raw materials

In regard to the last point, all suppliers to FIFA and World Cup venues must obtain their raw foods and other materials, such as processed ingredients and additives, from approved sources that comply with relevant legislation as a minimum requirement. In the event of a foodborne outbreak, the food industry will need to fully cooperate in tracing the source of the contamination in order to rapidly remove the implicated product from the food supply chain. In addition, all businesses should take basic precautionary measures to protect their  products from possible intentional contamination. 

WHO has also recommended that food workers, particularly those that handle ready-to-eat food, should be vaccinated on a voluntary basis against the hepatitis A virus. Personal hygiene and particularly hand washing after using the toilet or handling raw food, remains the best means of preventing the transmission of disease organisms. 

While the preparatory work that has been done to date will assure a safe and incident-free World Cup, relevant authorities and the food industry should, as good hosts, not be satisfied until the last guest goes home safe and healthy, convinced that this has been the best World Cup ever! 

For further information, kindly contact the Food Safety Initiative (CGCSA) at

lb@cgcsa.co.za; Tel: +27 (0) 11 7895777.