Food Safety Facts

The World Health Organisation has released the following “facts” on food safety.

• Unsafe food containing harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, or chemical substances, causes more than 200 diseases – ranging from diarrhoea and vomiting to cancers.
• An estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year.
• Children under 5 years of age carry 40% of the foodborne disease burden, with 125,000 deaths every year.
• Diarrhoeal diseases are the most common illnesses resulting from the consumption of contaminated food, causing 550 million people to fall ill and 230 000 deaths every year.

Government authorities believe that only a small percentage of food poisoning cases are in fact reported and the actual statistics could be much higher – have you ever had food poisoning and not reported it?

A major concern for the Catering industry is that 60-80% of food-borne illnesses originate from commercial food service enterprises such as restaurants, canteens, hotels, cruise ships, airlines, aged-care facilities, and hospitals.

Discussion

Can you find any other interesting statistics on food bourne illnesses?