What is Food Safety Week?

Food Safety Week is one of the most important pillars of Safe Food, Safe Family. Food Safety Week is a week-long educational exercise that educates consumers at various cooperatives in Kuwait about the importance of their role in keeping their food items safe for consumption. It is a week in which the Safe Food, Safe Family booth is located at one co-op in Kuwait, and our SFSF team spreads awareness on the importance of food safety from the beginning of the food-shopping experience, which happens at the supermarket. The purpose of Food Safety Week at co-ops is that there are certain practices which start from the moment you walk into a grocery store that people are not aware of. Being privy to these safety practices helps you avoid food poisoning, and keeps you and your family safe, which is what this community initiative is all about.

The week culminated with a grocery cart competition that tested how well consumers understood the basics of food safety through Food Safety Week. Three winners who were able to shop and pack their grocery carts in the safest manner walked away with a grocery cart full of food items worth 50KD.

Why is it important?

Cooperatives and consumers have a part to play in decreasing food poisoning cases in Kuwait and increasing the overall well-being of consumers at large in Kuwait. Through Food Safety Week at coops, we want to get the consumers thinking about the choices they make before they start purchasing their food items. This is done through information displayed throughout each coop, a booth that features educational material and food safety videos in five different languages, as well as a “co-op map” that we created to guide consumers in the safe order to purchase and separate their food items.

Food safety begins from the moment you purchase food items, thus hosting Food Safety Week at local cooperatives which started with Zahra Coop was the perfect start to the initiative. Patrons of the cooperative were also given food safety literature in five different languages – Arabic, English, Hindi, Malayalam and Tagalog so that they can share it with their housekeepers.