Food safety is everyone’s business – and it’s the businesses that make up food systems that are the cornerstone for providing safe food. Today's food systems are increasingly more global, diverse and complex, involving an array of businesses from subsistence farming to multinational food companies. Everyone eats – therefore, everyone relies on local and global food systems. Myriad foods and food ingredients move through this system, including animals and animal products, plants and plant products, vitamins and minerals – as well as recycling and waste.

USAID’s Feed the Future and Food Enterprise Solutions (FES) have co-created the Business Drivers for Food Safety (BD4FS) program to provide solutions in global investments that strengthen global food systems. FES actively engages the private sector, especially small-medium enterprises (SMEs), to promote food safety. This means that the conditions and measures necessary for food production, processing, storage, and distribution must be in place to ensure a safe, sound, wholesome product that is fit for human consumption. SMEs often face multiple food safety obstacles, like barriers to accessing affordable credit and finance, gaps in the supply chain and lack of credible training. BD4FS takes a multi-disciplinary approach to address these barriers comprehensively and effectively.

For World Food Safety Day, FES is releasing a brief that describes the following key focus areas of food safety and explores the barriers and challenges SMEs face in these areas:

• Nutritional impact 
• Importance of postharvest food management (PHFM) 
• Efficient logistics and cold chain 
• Affordable, accessible financing

Please download the brief to learn about how the BD4FS business-centered approach to food safety can create positive changes in the food system and the overall economy.