Clean markets, safe foods—Food safety in action

7 June marked the fifth annual World Food Safety Day, with this year’s theme ‘Food safety: prepare for the unexpected’ emphasizing the importance of being prepared for incidents. According to the United Nations, World Food Safety Day aims to inspire actions that help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.

To mark the occasion the Kenyan Ministry of Health, in coordination with peer ministries and national and county partners, organized several food safety activities from 4-7 June that culminated in a large summit in Nairobi. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) joined the Micro Enterprises Support Programme Trust (MESPT) and the County Government of Nyandarua in a clean-up activity on 4 June at Soko Mpya Market in Nyandarua county. This clean-up emphasised the importance of market cleanliness and hygiene. The event, attended by the Nyandarua governor Moses Ndirangu Badilisha, highlighted the role of clean markets in ensuring food safety, drawing significant attention from stall sellers, shoppers and the market community at large. 

The clean-up began with the removal of trash from the ground, into organised piles. Rain had embedded plastic into the mud, so this was removed using large shovels. The piles of trash were then loaded onto wheelbarrows and taken to a covered metal bin.

The trash was later collected by a truck.

While heavy rain left the market muddy, by the end of the day the market was clean and trash-free, making the market a safer place to sell, handle and buy food. 

After the clean-up ended, representatives of ILRI and the county government, Governor Moses Ndirangu, and Pil Holn Maargaard on behalf of the Royal Danish Embassy in Nairobi addressed the market and guest attendees. Hung Nguyen, co-leader of the Animal and Human Health Program at ILRI and Florence Mutua, a scientist in the same program, spoke to the crowd. 

Nguyen highlighted ILRI’s two decades of food safety research and emphasized the need for targeted solutions contextualized for low- and middle-income countries where food safety challenges are unique, particularly in open-air markets. Mutua stressed the importance of interventions such as training food handlers to sustain market food safety. She noted that the clean-up event was a vital first step in teaching vendors about the significance of maintaining a safe market, benefitting everyone involved. 

For more information about ILRI’s activities for World Food Safety Day 2024 visit:

• https://www.ilri.org/events/world-food-safety-day-2024

For more information about ILRI’s activities for World Food Safety Day 2023 visit:

• https://www.ilri.org/world-food-safety-day-2023