Session 3 and Breakout Session: Food Use

Speakers

Session Chair

Dr. Majid Alkhalaf, Acting Executive Director of Monitoring & Risk Assessment and the Secretary General of the National Nutrition Committee, Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA)

Keynotes

Dr. Yara Al-Muhtadi, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Behavior, King Saud University & Head of Scientific Awareness Team of National Nutrition Committee, SFDA

Mr. Faisal bin Sunaid, Director of Healthy Food Department, SFDA

Mr. Abdullah AlDakheelallah, Acting Director of of Risk Assessment Department, SFDA

Mr. Bander Saad Alowais, Head of Food Contaminants Monitoring section, SFDA

Mr. Sultan Al-Saif, Director of Technical Support, Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC)

Key messages

1. Food security is more than a supply issue.[1]

2. Consumers in the KSA have problematic behaviors around food nutrition and food waste which must be resolved. [2]

3. There is interest from community in Saudi Arabia to access to healthy, nutritious, affordable and safe food

4. Risk assessment and risk-based food safety approaches in the KSA are challenged by the lack of epidemiological surveillance data, government-wide LIMS and historical data, and food consumption surveys.

5. There is a need for more collaboration between governmental bodies to develop initiatives.Lack of infrastructure for data collection inhibits data sharing between government and private sector.

6. Successfully ensuring food safety from farm to fork requires a more inclusive approach with all stakeholders, including empowered consumers.

7. Nutrition education is a vital part of a comprehensive health education program and empowers the school students with knowledge and skills to make healthy food and beverage choices.

8. Nutritional awareness programs are one of the key factors that can affect individual lifestyle changes, but translating that knowledge into dietary behavioral changes is a challenge.

Recommendations*

1. Set national research priorities by using a systematic 'road map’ approach to advance the research agencies' mission.

2. Strengthen stakeholder engagement and risk communication.

3. Achieve transparency, in data sharing, and collaboration of integration data between different authorities must be achieved in all over food chain.

4. Develop public-private partnerships (PPPs) that prioritize public health.

5. Build a strong policy and regulatory framework that is updated periodically in response to any health risks.

6. Establish a harmonized and risk-based framework of food legislation.

7. Develop a cross-agency health monitoring and surveillance system that covers microbial chemical hazards and antimicrobial resistance.

8. Transform food safety from a reactive system to a proactive system, especially when addressing health risks emerging at human-animal-ecosystems interface.

9. Link food safety to effective measurement of the occurrence and magnitude of diseases and health-related concerns affecting the Saudi population in order to perform targeted prioritization for food safety improvements.

10. Develop cross-agency tools that enable the accurate assessment of the nutrition situational of the Saudi population to enable effective interventions.

11. Embed nutrition education into all school curriculums in the KSA.

12. Increase the efficacy of nutritional awareness programs by using different types of evidence-based interventions (e.g., applying behavior change techniques, rather than traditional methods)

13. Strengthen national and local food systems through upstream policy work

14. Develop strategies and plans and improve dissemination and use of evaluations.

15. Incentivize the public and private sector to deploy waste segregation at the source to enable valorization of waste (e.g., compost for agriculture) and contribute toward a circular economy. Incentivize the development of markets around sustainable and organically-sourced food products to increase organics recycling activities in the KSA.

* These recommendations were drafted by the Acting Executive Department of Monitoring and Risk Assessment, Secretary General of the National Nutrition Committee, Saudi Food and Drug Authority in preparation for the discussion.