Hello. Good morning. Good afternoon, dear participants. It's a real pleasure to welcome you to our FAO WHO webinar on COVID-19 and food safety control and food safety management. You are all very welcome to our webinar today. This is the 10th webinar in a series of webinars that we've been organising from the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia. And we're very pleased that today our webinar is jointly organised with WHO Regional Office for Europe. As we continue to understand, live and adapt to the effects and changes of during the COVID-19 pandemic, the purpose of these webinars is to facilitate information exchange, experience, sharing and to provide a platform for discussion and exchange abuse. And that's really what we want to do today. We are here to listen, to learn, to exchange information and we have set up an agenda that we hope will be interesting to all. My name is Mary Kenny. I am working as a food safety officer in FAO's Regional Office in Budapest and delivery programme also for our programme of work on transforming food systems and facilitating market access and integration. And very pleased to work with you all today and to moderate this session jointly with my colleague Peter Hosko from WHO Euro Regional Office. Some technical, yeah, there's Peter. Good. Some technical information. We have English and Russian interpretation, so you can listen on the bottom of your screen. I think we're all familiar now with Zoom, but on the bottom there's the interpretation button. You can choose English or Russian. We ask everybody to ensure that when you're not speaking to have your microphone switch off the mute. And the other, we have an hour and a half for the session today. So we will try to keep on track with the timing. And we do have the Q&A button and we do really encourage you to put any questions or queries you may have to the panel or for us to consider today in the Q&A box. And we also have the chat box is also open if you want to just share information from your country or share any further initiatives relevant to the issue of food safety control and management in the time of COVID-19. So let me proceed now with the opening remarks. I'm very pleased to be able to introduce first Raymond Yelle. Raymond is the strategic program leader in the regional office for Europe and Central Asia and FAO representative for Albania, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. So please, Raymond, the floor is yours for your welcoming comments. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mary. Dear colleagues, dear friends, good morning, good afternoon and maybe also to some of you even good evening because we are spanning over, let's say, a wide area of countries in the regions. Distinguished speakers, panelists and audience, it's really an honor to welcome you to this regional webinar on COVID-19 and food safety control and management. It's really also a pleasure to open this unique session because, as Mary was already mentioning, we're doing this together with WHO and in this case, let me very much welcome Peter Hoiskopf as the co-moderator technical officer for food safety and zoonotic diseases from WHO regional office as well as Ms. Caroline Brown, program area manager. Very much welcome and we're looking forward really to this unique opportunity. From our point of view, food safety is an integral part of the food system and it's really crucial to ensure that the food produced, consumed and traded is safe. Just in this case, I would like to mention we concluded a webinar of the UN Issues-Based Coalition on Sustainable Food Systems for Europe where we put into the center of the attention of this webinar the Global Food Systems Summit, which is going to come up in 2021. And of course, food safety is a key element of food systems and food systems is not just production. It really has economic, social and environmental dimensions. Food itself is, as we all know, a core necessity for us humans. Production and supply have really to be continued uninterrupted and I think we saw during the COVID, the early crisis of the COVID that there is a bit an issue, but on the other hand with green corridors, there have been measures also in place in order to ensure that there is definitely no interruption of this supply. But what is also quite important that no matter how this is going to be organized, the safety of the food cannot be compromised under any conditions. So if we are turning to the topic of the webinar today, we so far had no evidence that COVID-19 can be transmitted by food. The pandemic has certainly sharpened the focus on food safety related issues such as AMR, so antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, climate change, food fraud and the digitalization of food systems. The public health measures necessary to limit the person to person spread of the coronavirus have had an impact on the operations in food production and supply trading routes and markets and consumer purchasing patterns. So there are many examples how the food producers, food processors and the consumers in the ECA region have been affected and had also to react and to adapt. Farmers and food businesses had to tap into new markets and a sizable increase also in online food shopping and home delivery. We can see I think some of us all around Europe are in the meantime using food deliveries, home deliveries, office deliveries, but of course also food safety authorities needed to prioritize their routine functions to really critically important services during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to really maintain the safety and integrity of the food supply chain and to support of course also the international trade. So I'm really pleased that we are in the seminar today joined by many experts to share really their views on how the impact on our food systems may have also affected food safety control and the management activities and particularly also practice applied by the food safety authorities, food businesses or consumers and to which extent and how. And as Mary said, we really want to use these webinars as knowledge sharing, exchange of views, debate and probably also learning what we need to address in this case also in the future. So we also appreciate that we are getting here the regional perspectives from the European Commission and from the Eurasian Economic Commission as well as the multi-stakeholder panel really is reflecting perspectives from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and in that sense to have really an update on what has happened until now and using also an opportunity to look forward and to address any issues which are coming up taking also into consideration that some countries in the region are going now into a second lockdown. Some have been in the last couple of weeks gone in a second lockdown. So it's really something which is very timely. I think while it's important to continue assessing the impacts to inform actions, it's really timely to discuss how the COVID pandemic has and still really is affecting the food control and food safety risk management in the region. So we are very interested to hear what lessons have been learned, how the challenges where overcome and whether opportunities arose and what might need to be done differently in the future to really increase the resilience of our food systems. The webinar today really provides a great platform for that and so I'm very much looking forward to the discussion and thank you for your participation and attention. Over to you Mary, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Raimund. Let me pass directly now to Caroline Brown from WHO's health emergency program in the regional office for Europe where Caroline is a program area manager. Caroline, you have the floor. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mary. And it's my pleasure to welcome all the participants country representative speakers and FAO colleagues on behalf of the WHO regional office for Europe. And I'd especially like to thank our colleagues from FAO for making this 10th session a joint one. So the, I mean, you've already heard from the previous speaker and I will be reiterating some of what he has said. So the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented health and socio-economic challenge for countries in Europe and Central Asia. It has affected the entire food system. Border closures, trade restrictions and lockdowns have prevented food producers from maintaining their production, accessing markets and delivering food. Domestic and international food supply chains have been disrupted and people's access to healthy, safe and diverse diets has been threatened. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, global food systems were faced with the challenge of providing safe food for all. The pandemic has made this challenge even greater as it has just disrupted official food control and food safety risk management practices. The disruptions to the food supply chain and changes in food production and consumption patterns have changed food safety risks and shifted responsibilities between different groups of stakeholders. New approaches for routine food control activities such as inspection, certification, food import control, food monitoring and testing have been implemented by food safety authorities to meet this challenge. Food businesses have organized production processes and practices and new ways to accommodate changes in supply chains and reduce risks of transmission of COVID-19 between workers and between workers and customers. Consumers have been faced with a new reality of food consumption. WHO and FAO have developed guidance for food businesses on implementation of measures to maintain the integrity of the food chain to ensure the availability of adequate and safe food supplies for consumers. Guidance has also been developed for food safety authorities to ensure the effectiveness of reduced food safety inspection programs and to ensure there are temporary measures that can be used to contain food safety risks as a result of disruption to national food safety programs. As stakeholders in the global food system we all need to adapt the new reality of managing food safety. This is new for all of us and there is a lot we can learn from each other. This webinar has been organized to share information and experiences on how food safety risk management control and attitudes have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the webinar, a multi-stakeholder panel of experts will highlight opportunities and challenges from their different perspectives. We hope that the sharing of information and lessons will contribute to enhanced cooperation across different stakeholders and countries and strengthen food control and food safety risk management in emergency situations. WHO is committed to work with our member states and partners to strengthen food safety systems to better manage food safety risks during these unprecedented times as well as in preparation for potential food future emergencies. So once again, thank you all participants, speakers and panel members for participating and contributing to the webinar. Thank you. Thank you Caroline. Thank you very much. Thanks both to you and Raymond for very clear and informed opinions on and setting the scene to our webinar and our discussion today. I'm pleased to know that we have 200 participants have joined us until now. So this is really fabulous. Before we move into our first short presentation, we'd like to ask you a question. I think we have a short poll, a question now that Katharina will launch and if you will just give your answer to the question. So our first simple question is is COVID-19 a food safety issue? So yes, no, or I don't know. So we give you a few seconds to put in your answer there and to press the submit button at the end. And then hopefully we will see the results of what we are seeing on this. So I'm sure you have finished. So okay, there we have the results. Okay, so we have over 50% are saying that COVID-19 is a food safety issue. 39% saying no and 9% don't know. Okay, I think we will, that I think is a very good entry to our next presentation from Mr. Jeffrey Lejeune. So we will, I know he will address some of this issue in more detail. And let me introduce Jeff who will set the scene and give us some key pointers in terms of COVID-19 and food safety. Jeff is a food safety officer in FAO headquarters in Rome. He works there on the microbiological scientific advice work, microbiological hazards in food, a joint program with WHO. Jeff is a veterinarian and has from Canada and has a PhD in veterinary diagnostics from Washington State University. Jeff, I would like to thank you for your introduction. Thank you for the introduction. I will share my screen and as I do so just mentioned that I did not see that question before it was asked in the poll and I kind of debated on the answer and I won't keep any secrets from you. My response would be probably yes, but I would like to thank you for the introduction. And hopefully this presentation will fill out the answer to the second question. You'll know more and be able to either agree or disagree with me as I go through. My intent is just to take a few minutes to give you a bigger picture of the COVID impacts on global food security in the future. Maybe we're not brought up in your region but you might want to look out for things that may have happened in other regions as well. I'll briefly go through it and I'll be around later to join if there's questions. You can always submit those in the Q&A as well. Many of you are well aware of the 2030 agenda in the future. And definitely this pandemic has impacted that goal and specifically our potential to reach the specific SDGs of reducing poverty, reducing hunger, having good health and a decent economic growth in different communities because of the impacts of this pandemic. Now, I guess this might be one of my favorite slides in this whole presentation. If you can take home anything, this would be it. We have a definition of what food security is and that's all people at all times having the physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe nutrition food. And typically most of the time we talk, I talk from a food safety perspective about having access to safe food, but here we're talking about sufficient food. And what I want to do is this picture kind of depicts what's going on. And I'll spend maybe a little bit more time on this and rapidly go through some of the other slides which you'll have access to as soon as the presentation. Now, in our food supply chains, here we have these apples on this cart, which when they're put there completely safe, and nutritious food. However, there's been a shock to the system. And that shock is represented by this lightning bolt in the background. And it has upset the apple cart. So these apples are not going to get to their destination in the time that we had expected. So we've interrupted the food supply chain indirectly. Some of them have fallen on the ground. Before they were there, they were safe, but we've got a horse here. We could have manure that could be unsafe now. Maybe they won't get there in time before they spoil. So there's a number of impacts that this pandemic has had, not directly because of the contamination of the food with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but the secondary or knock-on effects of such impact. So let's just move a little bit closely and look about what some of those secondary effects are and how they might affect food safety. So here's the three highlighted ones. We've got the impact on production. There is potential that the raw materials aren't getting into food production facilities, fertilizers, seeds, and things like this. We've got supply chain disruptions, border closures that don't allow for transportation, and also the borders that don't allow for movement of agricultural workers, and trade restrictions. So all three of these will have an impact. So for example, when we talk about impact on labor, a lot of labor, especially in low and middle income country, goes into our food supply chain. If these people are sick, they can't work, and therefore you don't have the people to cultivate or to harvest and to pack and process the food. The other issue is when these people are sick or they can't work, they don't have as much money and they don't have the money to purchase the food that they would normally buy. So there could be some food insecurity there, or they may resort to eating lower quality food or food of a less safe origin. So that's one thing is impact on agricultural production. You see an estimate in this graph here that we were on track to reduce the number of people in severe poverty as the lower or the X axis represents the years, and this was the hundreds of millions of people that were falling into poverty. We were on a downhill slope, but as the COVID hit, we see more and more people are going into extreme poverty. So again, that makes it more difficult for people to purchase food. So the other thing, the second point was the supply chain disruptions. You've heard in the news of massive outbreaks of COVID-19 among agricultural workers. These have happened in North America and also in Europe as well. There's been reports from fish processing plants in Africa, for example. And even in vegetable production sites as well, where they're harvesting, so not only just the processing, but the production. So you see that we can have a potential for human illnesses. And I'll talk a little bit about some of the control measures a little later on on how we can prevent disease transmission in this setting and enhance the supply chain integrity. I mentioned agricultural inputs, and then we have a potential for blocking imports or exports. The other thing is kind of a secondary, but there's been a lack of interruption of social programs. For example, school lunch feedings. Without schools being on, there are a number of children that would depend upon that source for a safe and nutritious food supply to get their meals. But without going to school, that's no longer available for them. So you can see how this would impact both their security and potentially their safety. I'll mention trade restrictions again. And this is said, and hopefully this will be a main take on matches you'll hear over and over again. There's no supply rate. It can relate to reasons why the health crisis should turn into a food crisis. So people are, although there's been some interruptions in food production, there's enough food around that people should be able to obtain adequate nutrition. This map here, the darker colors represent where there's been more and more interruptions in food imports or availability. And simply some of them is because some countries are blocking imports because of fear, not necessarily on science or of contamination or wanting to make sure that they maintain their own food supplies in case they can't get their own. But again, we'll talk a little bit more about this. And I think the real crux to the argument is, and this has been mentioned twice already, I believe, there's no evidence of foodborne transmission of COVID-19 through food. Okay. And the problems are these bear trade barriers that have been erected due to concerns over food and packaged food and their testing. Now, for example, we know that the virus can persist in an M&M and object. It cannot replicate. Okay. But it can survive there for some time. And China, for example, I've done some of the most extensive sampling and you see almost three million specimens tested. This data were probably from almost a month ago, including three quarters of a million food and food packaging items, a million from the environment, 1.2 million from food processors themselves. And you see 22 positive samples by PCR. Now these positive samples don't even indicate that that is an infectious virus. There's just some remnants of a virus. Again, there's no evidence of anyone acquiring the disease from touching a contaminated food product or from eating a food product. So despite the fact, there's a very, very, very low level of contamination in the first place. You don't even know that that can result in a subsequent human infection. So we have at FAO a number of roles in protecting food security. One is to, again, meet these needs and I could go to the World Food Program who recently received the World Peace Prize for providing this, filling this gap and helping people. But we want to boost the social protection programs, keep the food chain going and keep the domestic supply chains moving. So in order to do that, we need to support everyone from small farmers to the larger production as well. Now that's what FAO's roles are, but everyone has a role in protecting the safety during this pandemic. I mentioned food producers. And so those that are growing and perhaps the vegetables or the animals, workers in food production and their primary production of processing and then get down here to the competent authorities and even the consumers. The more knowledge is available, the better it is. In terms of competent authorities, a few issues were mentioned about changes in certification of the food system. We need to promote and enforce food system and food safety policies that are compatible with the current restrictions on travel and concerns about contamination. And these definitely need to be science-based, okay? And not kind of propagated by fear. The other thing related to this is this need for adequate and true risk communication and kind of squelching stories that get spread on say social media that don't have a scientific basis. And consumers as well, they need to inform themselves of what the potential risks are. The last thing we really need here is a food safety outbreak of some other disease on top of this pandemic. The last thing someone wants to do is to go to the hospital because of a gastroenteritis problem and come home or not come home because of a COVID infection. So we need to double down here in this time of crisis to make sure that we maintain a healthy population. Now, in order to do this, and I think our last speaker just mentioned a couple of these joint guidances issued by WHO and FEO together, one to responsible competent authorities and also for food businesses. And if you search these, you can find some of the practical advice on how to prevent transmission of COVID-19 in food processing environments such as personal protective equipment, glove wearing and mask wearing, social distancing, or actually a better word would be physical distancing. We want to make sure that distance is far enough apart that the virus cannot be spread. There's also operational and structural changes that can be made in food processing environments by erecting barriers or increasing airflow in these environments to prevent transmission and keeping this to a minimal problem. So I think we're referring to these guidances for more specific details. And with that, I think I'll close and hopefully our other speakers will pick up on some of these and we can enjoy a lively discussion. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. And yeah, thank you very much for highlighting a number of the key points again for outlining that COVID-19 is not, there's no evidence of it being transmitted through our food. We did highlight a number of changes in our food supply system and different patterns that may have not gone in effect on how we manage food safety risks. And thanks also for bringing our attention to the FAOWGO guidelines as well that we can share. The link has now been shared in the chat box. So good, let us, conscious the time is moving. So let us move to our, we have two more short presentations before we get into the discussion. I'm really pleased to have our first regional perspective from Mr. Tim Gumbel. Tim is deputy head of unit in DG, Santa at the European Commission. Tim, over to you please to give us an update on the experience and work you've been doing in terms of food controls during COVID-19. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mary, for this invitation, for the opportunity to share our experience with the management food controls during the COVID-19 crisis. Greetings from Brussels to all of you. And as my presentation is loading up, I would just like to stress that what I will be presenting to you in respect to food controls is of course part of a wider response of the European Commission to the pandemic. If we move to the first slide in the presentation, you will see that of course some of the aspects, that's a bit small, but some of the aspects already mentioned also by previous speakers relating to health protection of workers, support to businesses, ensuring smooth trade and working on the provision of supply of medical equipment where of course part of the wider response of the European Commission to the crisis unfolded. The Commission provided this response to the 27 EU member states, but of course also in some cases beyond Europe, especially when it came to supply of equipment. Now turning to today's topic of the food controls, I think many of the aspects I'd like to touch upon have been already mentioned by previous speakers, but in my next slide I would just to pick out two particular dates because I think what we've been discussing so far is the general picture, but not so much put it into relation with the time flow or how the crisis unfolded. In Europe we saw exactly the developments which were mentioned before, restrictions being put in place for the free movement of people, meaning consumers, meaning workers, meaning official control staff. We saw restrictions, border checks for goods and as the Commission started to become aware of the extent of the crisis, rapid response was of course needed. So on a horizontal basis, not specifically geared upon the area of food controls, what was put in place in March already 23rd of March was the concept of the green lanes. So basically ensuring smoother flow of goods across borders, priority treatment if you wish for certain goods to make sure that the supply security would be insured, not only for foods but also for certain essential consumer goods and as regards the movement of people, of course we are currently still in a situation less and less where measures are being adapted constantly where there are movement restrictions for people, let's say rules being put in place restricting, let's say standard behaviors etc. And in that area it took a little bit longer to come to a coordinated approach. We had a first measure put in place, let's say proposed approach by the Commission in June this year. So you see already going back in time what is coming up and as this crisis unfolded which kind of general response was given. Now moving on in the slides particularly in relation to food controls I would like to focus on three aspects and explain a bit our response to those particular challenges also already mentioned. One was this aspect of the food safety very early in the crisis already. We faced of course lots of questions from consumers from businesses from authorities in our EU member states. As you know we have a single market we have a harmonized legal framework. All the authorities across the member states work according to the same standards and the same provisions. So the need arose very quickly to put in place some kind of tool which would help address certain concerns and when it came to clarifying that there is no risk of transmission of the virus via food and of giving advice on the handling of food during production distribution and at the stage of consumers the Commission put in place already in early April guidance which developed together with the European Risk Assessment Body European Food Safety Authority based on the scientific advice available at that time but of course being looked at on a constant basis. The Commission put in place this guidance to provide help and also compiled already a number of recommendations which existed at national level. This was very helpful because we had of course a plethora of recommendations, communications etc. bringing them together, summarize and make available a common set of knowledge to everyone. Another aspect moving on was of course development in consumer behavior consumer exposure to the situation and possible reactions which again trigger the need to react from the side of the public authorities. More specifically as this online trade e-commerce etc. was growing also in the food area in the specific situation consumers were more and more exposed also to advertisements claiming that certain products were helpful to prevent infection, to prevent transmission of the virus to offer a cure etc. products which would be food supplements or not medicines but food with a claim certain beneficial effects and we saw very quickly that some action was needed also in that area and launched also in April this year what we call a coordinated control plan so basically a common control campaign carried out by our Member States authorities, 19 countries participated to detect such offers on the web to take appropriate action report non-compliant offers ensure a follow up and also then ensure of course that any kind of offers which were non-compliant so which would for example claim beneficial effects which were non-existent would be removed or appropriately modified on the web so this part of the consumer exposure to certain foods with claim beneficial effects was also one major part of our activities now moving on in my presentation more specifically on the side of control authorities and businesses of course we were facing in Europe the problems as I mentioned of interruptions in the supply chain not also as the FAO colleague already mentioned in the production in the availability of food but more in making sure that food including animals for production including plants going into the food chain would actually reach their destination and time that would be sufficient supply at all times at the same time the movement restrictions due to public health also affected the possibility of control inspectors to perform their tasks of businesses to make the appropriate steps to ensure that they were working in line with our legal framework so very quickly already at the end of March we put in place what we call a safeguard measure so basically a crisis reaction measure directed at mitigating these problematic effects of the pandemic we prepared this measure quite rapidly as the author I can reassure you in a few days and nights and basically it is set up as an option for our member states so very important as also already mentioned by FAO our general legal framework imposing respect of norms to ensure food safety prevention of risks to animal and plant health and to human health more generally remained intact we were however convinced that we needed a certain flexibility and this measure taken at the end of March then let's say spells out the flexibility in more detail as an option so of course geared to the particular situation of our member states whether they were more or less considering they were in need of special flexibility they could use this option beyond the EU it was also used by Norway and during 2020 by the United Kingdom this year still applying the European legislation the consequence of using the flexibility was a common agreement that there would be no internal trade restrictions between the member states applying such flexibility and the measure was put in place as I said end of March and prolonged in several steps is still in place until early February and we are considering currently an extension of the measure even beyond well into next year because obviously as we are all aware the situation still has I mean the COVID has still effects which we are dispensing today so now moving on a bit more specifically what is this flexibility we offered to our food control authorities but of course with beneficial effects for consumers and for businesses first of all as mentioned control staff was not always available staff of official laboratories was not always available to reach the place of work to perform analysis which are necessary to back up the control results back up decisions taken by authorities during controls so what we allowed for was use of natural persons so basically if you wish anybody but anybody with special qualifications and experience in the domain acting under the supervision of the competent authorities and such person would be able to perform certain controls under the supervision of the control authorities this was particularly useful in the initial phase of the pandemic when there were severe movement restrictions as the situation evolved this measure approved no longer necessary but in a discussion just this week with our member states colleagues we came to the conclusion that in certain cases it may still be helpful so we are now considering actually reintroducing this possibility and I think we'll come to a discussion on the pros and cons later on today secondly flexibility is provided for performance of documentary controls paper flow between our trading partners and us is still to a large extent I mean documentary flow is still between our trading partners and us to a large extent on a paper basis we have an IT system we are still managing and recording results of official controls but to the outside world we still have to be able to receive paper this paper flow was in many cases interrupted interruption of international transport etc at the time so we allow for use of electronic information for documentary controls at the same time of course working more and more towards a roll out of use of signed and transmitted information so in our case electronically signed certificates issued by our trading partners this would of course be the ideal step forward not only for the pandemic but in general terms for management of flows of documentary information in relation to consignments of animal plants food and feed the third element of our measure was to widen the options for management of laboratories so as mentioned official laboratories were not always able to function properly because of availability of staff so the option was there also for a time again more in the initial phase of the pandemic to use also other laboratories with appropriate competence of course under the supervision of control authorities to perform the analysis and the fourth element I think very important improvement and step forward and still very much necessary for the performance of control even now includes the clear possibility to use the means of remote communication for the performance of controls of course our framework was always open to using means of remote communication but of course there are also certain situations where for example premises of businesses have to be inspected certain samples have to be taken from a lot of a certain product directly by an official person in accordance with a certain routine so such kind of activities should of course be performed connected with a direct physical contact which in this pandemic we wanted to avoid as much as possible for public health reasons so this is why we were allowed for this use of means of remote communication very much still used and very much necessary according to the feedback we get from our colleagues in the EU member states so thank you for this opportunity to provide you a brief overview and I'll be happy to discuss some of the aspects with all of you as we go on in this webinar thank you thank you Tim Gumbel from the European Commission for a very detailed overview and some specific examples of how within the Commission you have adapted and made practical arrangements to do some flexible arrangements as you said to continue food control but without compromising or weakening let's say our food safety so this was very very informative I'm pleased now to to introduce Miss Salia Karim Beva from the Eurasian Economic Commission and to have an overview a regional perspective from the Eurasian Economic Commission on activities within their commission in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic Salia, can we kindly have your intervention and I will ask you to try to keep to the limited time I apologize we're running a little bit over thank you very much thank you Mary Good day dear colleague I would like to welcome you to the Eurasian Economic Commission and of course to thank you and to the National Health Organization for the invitation to participate in the webinar For the present day the international agenda within the Eurasian Economic Union as in the whole world is formed in the non-standard conditions of the coronavirus infection the restrictions that were introduced in the pandemic caused significant changes in the economic life of the Eurasian Economic Union and, of course, the interests of the citizens of the Eurasian Economic Union along with the pandemic and the lack of directives in favor of consumers and now we are paying attention to the demand for a certain type of production and goods and on the other side of the goods the demand for a certain type of production and goods is, accordingly, a very important demand and is extremely important for all of us in this difficult period for the Commission it is very important to develop unified measures that allow the countries of the Union to adhere to the measures aimed at providing a close balance that allows to save the economy and at the same time participate in the interest of citizens and, of course, to investigate the recent pandemic and against the epidemic with the world next slide, please monitoring the situation related to the protection of the rights of the countries of the Union during the period, I will allow to highlight the general conditions in this sphere the active entertainment of the online industry on the one hand, I will help the business to maintain the active environment on the other hand, I will promote the distribution of internet machines for which consumers will not only be financed with their personal data, but also with taxes an important document accepted by the Commission in this period is the implementation aimed at systematization and implementation of the entire exchange between the countries of the Commission on the protection of the rights of the countries. Sorry, Celia could you move a little bit closer to the microphone please the sound is not so good thank you next slide, please first of all, the development of the Commission is monitoring the development of the environmental situation related to the distribution of the coronavirus infection of the rights of the Union, as well as monitoring of the United States of the Union on the protection of the negative consequences of the spread of the coronavirus infection in addition to this commission on the distribution of the effective implementation of the Union under the control of the macroeconomic stability, the creation of the conditions for further economic development, which will help the government of the Union to develop and implement no localization of the spread of the coronavirus, the protection of the health of people and the implementation of macroeconomic consequences. Accordingly, the Commission will present a series of important documents which are set up for temporary delivery from the EU of separate types of goods. We approve the transfer of the product of the critical import, free of the necessary procedures of the Federal Union and on the territory of the Federal Union to the level of the first necessity of the implementation of the and the ensured variety of operational systems of the Union, the medical network of the health and health of the health of the health of the and the disinfection of the health of the of the health of the necessary algorithms of monitoring and monitoring of the required requirements of the emergency care. And finally the in the field of medical care, the development of the Eurasian National Council will provide a group of expatriate companies in the field of health care and the medical care of the population in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection and other infectious diseases on the territory of the state of the members. The next slide, please. In order to prevent the transfer of the communication between the countries of the Union and the establishments of the first need at the same time as the security of the state of the citizens, the Eurasian National Council recommended the organization of the work of the objects in the area of the transport of these routes to the border of the territory of the state of the Union. This document is developed in accordance with the status of the Eurasian National Council of the Union, as well as the Eurasian National Council of the World Health Organization. The Eurasian National Council with the members of the Eurasian National Council of the Eurasian National Council and their transports have prepared a methodical combination of certain approaches at the same time to prevent the spread of the Eurasian National Council of the Union and the establishment of the Eurasian National Council. In fact, the Eurasian National Council has also received a request from the International Council on the use of air transport in order to develop a document in part of the harmonization of the Eurasian National Council with the establishment of the Eurasian National Council of the World Health Organization of the Union. Without a word, the member of the Eurasian National Council of the World Health Organization has rejected the strategic plans of the development of the Eurasian National Council. On December 11, 2020, the Eurasian National Council approved the strategic instructions of the development of the Eurasian Economic Integration until 2025. And of course, with the help of the experience received during the implementation of the document, there was a certain mechanism of cooperation in the new environment, which was not looked at by the Eurasian National Council, which was approved in 2014. Accordingly, there was a planned event from above, from above, education, science, tourism and health care. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Salia. And thank you very much. I know at the last moment, unfortunately, Miss Natalia Zakova needed to leave the presentation. So you stood in at the last moment. So this is, thank you very much for sharing the views and some of the updates in terms of the arrangements for food and for standards on food being traded and moving among the countries of the Eurasian Economic Commission. So I think lots of food for thought, lots of experiences so far that we have shared, and we are following also your comments and questions in the chat and in the Q&A, and we will be coming back to one or two of your key questions in our question and answer session shortly. Before that, I would like to just have a little bit of a discussion with some other members of our panel to hear a little bit more from other stakeholders and perspectives from other countries in our, across our region. In this, let's say, next 15 minutes, we'd like to hear a little bit more about what impacts or what changes have occurred in food safety control and management, if any, in your country due to the COVID-19, during the COVID-19 pandemic so far. I'm going to turn first to Mr. Tengiz Kalanadze from Georgia. Tengiz is from the Food and Rural Development Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture in Georgia. And we've heard quite a bit from the European Commission and also from the Eurasian Economic Commission. But we'd really like to hear from a country perspective now from you and Georgia in terms of what changes did you see on the part of the food safety competent authorities in practice in carrying out their official food control activities where new measures adopted, it was information shared in a different way, what was the relationship with the private sector. So Tengiz, over to you please for a perspective on what has been happening in the Georgian context. Thank you. Please go ahead. Yes, please go ahead. Thank you. I'd like to note that when the pandemic started in February or March, we created an international council that will command our Prime Minister and we also have a staff member who is a member of the Ministry of State and the staff member and will decide on technical issues and between the state, the Ministry of State and the council will decide to give new rules as we have to do with the pandemic. We have created a joint ministry of the Ministry of State and the Ministry of Health Some guidelines, new rules, which must follow the business operators who sell pleasure. Distributes, importers and business operators, i.e. markets, restaurants, etc. I would like to note that two questions were put here. The first presentation was about food security, i.e. providing for pleasure, but not about food safety. And this is also very important. Of course, there were some limitations, some disadvantages, but we all tried to fix these disadvantages. And we did not have a deficit of pleasure. As for food safety, i.e. food security is one of the same in Russian, but also these disadvantages. As for food safety, I would like to note that the official control was not invited for one day. As for our service, which is called the service of food security, every day we checked, i.e. just checked the state official control, also monitored, i.e. take, taste, pleasure and laboratory control, it all continued without restrictions. As for the new rules that we wrote together with the Ministry of Food Safety, we also started to inspect and control these new rules together. I can specifically read what new rules we took and controlled. It is very interesting that we, of course, have new information, which gives information to all the world food security organizations. And based on their guidelines, we wrote these new protocols and guidelines, of course, we did not come up with anything new. I.e. these rules are owned by the government, by the establishment of the government, and, of course, all should follow these rules, i.e. our population and business operators, too. It is very interesting, it is very important that, for example, in the markets, many people are watching, many people do not concentrate, i.e. they are standing outside on the street, and this is what we do in the market, it is very important. I observe the distance, and because of this, I follow special people who work in these markets. They have experienced new training, and they know how to observe these methods. Then, of course, when they come in and check, they do thermal cleaning. And if there is a temperature, of course, they do not let in and give information to the Ministry of Food Safety, for example, we have all the children on the catastrophe, and the ambulance, and so on, and they take these measures. The second is, of course, all these masks, as the personnel who work there, such consumers who come in there, it is necessary. There is a very large penalty for this bill, and all the population knows all this. Then, in shops, markets, and so on, there is disinfection, as well as the hands of all those who come in. And disinfection is necessary, in the protocol, of course, disinfection of all the inventory of materials, for example, there is a wheel, a basket, and so on, which consumers, how to say, use. There is disinfection of all these materials that are in the markets. I want to note that at the moment we have a command time, we do not have a school building, we do not have a restaurant, they work only online. But markets work, banks work, pharmacies work. This is very important, these are critically important businesses that work. As far as, I want to note, as far as restaurants are concerned, they work, of course. We have a command time from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock in the evening, and at this time, people cannot go out on the street, but we personally, my department is engaged in this, we give a night pass to ensure distribution of fun, and on the benches, so that there are no difficulties of fun. And at this time, online sales work, that is, couriers. Restaurants work inside, workers stay until 5 o'clock in the morning, that is, all the cooks and so on, they work inside. And the courier delivery, we also pass through, so that they deliver the product, the fun. It is very interesting, about food safety, that is, about food safety, that we have a new regulation, about the establishment of the government, about etiquette, about fun, and this is also spread on online delivery. That is, when we buy, inside the store, we have to follow these rules, but not only there, but when they leave this product to us, when they leave it in the store, there should also be a follow-up to these rules of etiquette delivery, and our clients try to check it too. That is, this fact also concerns the supply of food safety, not food security. As for, I want to note food security, that is, in the spring, in the spring, in March, in the month, when it started. Thank you, Mr. Tengiz. Thank you very much. I think you've given us a bit of a mix of issues, so you've given us a good explanation of the current state and the measures in Georgia. And then I was hearing you talking, most interestingly, from the food safety authority point of view, some changes looking closer at online delivery of food and ensuring the food safety there and even renewed efforts on labeling and information to the consumer. You mentioned laboratory and food control, food inspection aspect as well. So I think this is very on target from a government point of view. If I may, I do want to bring in the perspective of the private sector now, because we've heard a lot from a government point of view and from a food safety authority point of view. We're really pleased that we're joined today by two representatives in our panel from the private sector. I'd like to ask first question to Mr. Abdrasilov, who is a meat exporter from Kazakhstan and also works with the meat union and NGO in Kazakhstan. Mr. Abdrasilov, we'd like you to describe changes in how you've had to look and manage food safety controls from the point of view of your company or even what you have seen. Do you believe there's been, let's say, a change in emphasis on food safety? Good evening, colleagues. Can I start? Please, go ahead. Good evening, colleagues. My name is Abdrasilov, from Kazakhstan. We're an exporter. We export meat to Iran, Qatar, and China. Due to the pandemic, at the beginning of March, when all the borders were closed, we felt, let's say, that there was a strong lockdown in Kazakhstan. That is, there was a very strong quarantine. As a manufacturer, we felt a slight change in ourselves. Why? Because we work according to the standards. This is a mandatory thermometer. So, let's say, the hygiene was observed. But due to the fact that it was necessary to prevent, let's say, the introduction of a person who is ill, with a cough or something, so that they don't get infected, so that it didn't get in the box, it didn't get in the packaging, we began to conduct a PCR test among our employees. Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me? Yes. Plus, when the state closed, they put up a black post and made a restriction on migrations of people from the city to the region. But as a system-based manufacturer, we opened a green corridor, we delivered meat to the city through the green corridor. Here, you can say, what has changed for people, for the consumer, if you look at it as a consumer, when they were sitting at home, people began ordering food or products through online companies. Or they went out at a certain time, let's say, they went out on the street and bought from small shops, well, let's say, meat shops, we have all our shops, in addition to the export. And people changed their habits. We used to have people's understanding that you need to buy meat at the market, why? Because at the market, at the markets, if you buy at the market, it's fresh, secondly, very cheap, because the farmer sells there. In fact, it never happened. There were intermediaries that sold dubious quality of meat. But when the pandemic hit, people changed their habits, they began to buy meat shops. We, as a private sector, when we saw that all the states began to do protectionism, the same China, the same our neighbors, began to limit the weight of our meat. When we began to work with the internal market, we worked with the internal market and supermarkets, restaurants, because of the lockdown, all big supermarkets, more than 500 square meters, all the restaurants were closed. That's why we had to develop distribution for the B and C category of small shops. We began to make portioned meat, 500 grams per kilogram package, and we began to distribute it in these shops. Plus, with the management of the city of Almaty, Akimatam, the city of Almaty, we signed a contract saying that we will keep the prices. Meat is a socially important product. That's why we kept the prices socially important. And they gave us affordable, free, affordable means, money. We worked with them in this order. And we still work with them. Yes. If you have any questions, you can answer. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to our colleague, Mr. Lapa from Ukraine, who is engaged in the Ukrainian food business club, and to hear his perspectives, to see if would you give us a short intervention, Mr. Lapa, on whether you think there's any increased awareness of food safety or increased demand even from the consumers to your agri-food businesses on food safety. What is changing? And kindly, I ask you to be brief as we are pressed for time. Thank you. Thank you very much, Maria. Good afternoon to all participants of this webinar. I would divide my short speech into part. The first part is our vision of how it works at the level of food business operator and the second part how it works at the level of competence in Ukraine. Regarding food business, it was really a challenging time during spring lockdown because there was no experience, there was no necessary level of knowledge and there was sophisticated decision at governmental level and it was very challenging time for food business operator because in contrast with the European Union we hadn't had official recommendations how to manage good epidemiological practice at the level of food business operators and there was a requirement, there was limitation but there was no recommendation and for example we as Ukrainian Agri-Business Club we made special webinar for our members with some recommendation and experts also participated in this local, I mean local experts also participated in this seminar and changing of experience and recommendation of good experts it was really urgent transfer for those problems which we had during spring time. Also, as I said, some decision, governmental decision was questionable, for example first lockdown in Ukraine was very big closure of all so called open markets where small and medium farmers sell their products and it was spring time when vegetables appeared at the market and without channels of selling many SME many small and medium farmers in Ukraine lost their incomes and it was also some kind of lesson because after that during summer and autumn there was and there is no limitation for work of open markets and one of the answers is e-commerce in March this year during first weeks of lockdown there was few quite promising and it's interesting startups which develop e-commerce, e-commerce probably understand that it's more long term process, it's developing sector and it will develop but business in Ukraine react quite fast and it was also solution which provide possibilities alternative ways of realization of products. If you're talking about e-commerce give rise to food safety changes for the private sector or for the competent authority I hadn't seen any impacts on food safety so there is overall recommendation or requirements of Ukrainian legislation that each food business operator should be registered he should be subject of control program, he should be subject of monitoring program, it's overall requirements and it's more about way of realization it's not about specific requirements and to food business operator and if you're talking about competent authority as I said control program where and is in place as well as monitoring program it's not some specific requirements but in general food safety system in Ukraine in place Ukraine probably in this respect quite specific country because competent authority of Ukraine responsible not only for food safety control directly but also during period of quarantine food safety service is responsible for control of some epidemiological measures and some limitations for example like working hours of restaurants or cafe etc etc etc and it's provide of course huge additional advantage and and pressure to capacity of food safety service in Ukraine of course there were some additional measures like testing of employers to some scale work had been switched to online because we have e-documentation system in food safety in Ukraine and where it was connected not to specific inspection in place the work of employers were switched online also this year year of quality limitation of e-certification system in Ukraine I mean we have online system of issue of veterinary certificate I mean system in Ukraine not for international trade because for international trade sorry we have lost the English I believe but I speak in English yeah okay I'm talking I'm talking just about e-certification because this year is year of pilot implementation of e-certification in respect to veterinary certificates it works according to requirements of legislation there is issue of paper documents but in general food safety service in Ukraine which for full implementation of e-certification in respect to veterinary certificates and the next year as far as I know there will be year of pilot implementation of electronic fighters of e-certification of course we are talking about domestic documentation if we would like to issue international documents it should be matter of communication with our key trade partners it's possible and I guess it's one of the solution one of lesson which we should make taking into account current problem with COVID there is no e-inspection it's requirements of of legislation that inspection in Ukraine should be in place but if you're talking about international experience we had few such inspection of our international partners it's quite good examples and I guess it can be an answer and quite good answer in respect to international activities and one more just one more additional input from my side in respect to competent authority activities last year there was introduction of e-learning system in food safety state food safety authority in Ukraine as we understand it had not been connected to pandemic because there was no pandemic it's just ordinary process of introduction of modern tools but it provides possibilities as you probably know there is specific requirements that regarding improvement of knowledge of inspectors there is a specific frequency and should be in place last year such system had been introduced in Ukraine and now food safety service can not only train inspectors but also test knowledge through such system in Ukraine so in general in short that's all what I would like to say and thank you very much for the invitation and for possibilities to provide we may come back to you before we end the session today thank you for putting the spotlight on some of your experiences in terms of e-learning and how that can be now used more even but also some of the e-certification issues that you raise as well and I think an important point that you raised and that we've seen in a number of other countries as well is that the food inspectorate bodies or the official food control bodies did have to take up a lot of activities on advising food businesses directly on public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among the food workers so not a food safety issue but again another official activity that the food inspectorate undertook one another perspective that we haven't we've mentioned the consumer but I think it's really important to get an update from to look a bit deeper on the consumer we're joined by Klaus Grunert from the Arhus University and he will give us an insight into some research that they've carried out in September 2020 where they've interviewed over 5,000 consumers in 10 different countries so to get some to understand better what is happening at the consumer level during the COVID-19 pandemic so as we'd like to hear a bit some of the highlights of that in a short period but also if there's any insights into how that interplays also with consumers practices on food safety or their attitude or their demands on thank you Klaus okay thank you we have been studying changes in food related consumer behaviors because of the pandemic in an ERT food project and that project is based on a survey we did with as you said 5,000 consumers in 10 European countries in addition we've also been conducting 10 focus groups in 5 different countries and we've been asking people about changes in their behavior related to all the steps in the meal provisioning chain that means with regard to their shopping with regard to which products they buy with regard to what they're looking for when they buy products and with regard to the way they eat meals and let me see right away the study did not have a food safety focus but some of the results that we have may have an aspect of food safety in them and that's also why I would like to concentrate on these let me also say many people answered that nothing changed so for many people they did not think that the pandemic had any impact on their food related behaviors but then we had quite a number of people that did say that something had changed and the changes could point into different directions but I'm concentrating here on some of the major trends that we have where a sizable number of people were moving in a particular direction and more people than moving into another direction first one I want to mention is related to shopping one thing is that people have been making fewer shopping trips and buying more per shopping trip and that is related among other things also to an attempt to minimize the fear of getting infected by moving about less but also with having less points of contact when they go shopping we had a trend which already has been mentioned several times here during the webinar namely that people buy more online and people buy more take home and more home delivery and the objective food safety aspect that may be related to that people mostly don't realize I think at least that was not something that was mentioned a lot we had some concerns by people when they had home delivery from small restaurants because actually a number of people said they would like to order food home from restaurants that they know also to demonstrate loyalty to the restaurants that they've been visiting when that was possible so now they're ordering home delivery and it was a small place there were some concern about the hygienic conditions and so on second point I want to mention is related to packaging there was an increased concern many consumers about packaging and that could go to waste one way was that people for hygienic reasons rather would buy something pre-packed even though earlier we bought something which was sold without packaging but we also had an opposite movement namely that people were some people were buying more unpackaged food or at least we're looking for that the packaging should be buy degradable from a sustainability perspective the last one is related to my third point which is a more general one namely that we find generally attendance towards more deliberation it's more making conscious or mindful decisions than buying food many people were saying they were making less spontaneous purchases less unplanned or impulse purchases they were more planning they were more reading labels comparing products, looking at best buy dates, looking at lists of ingredients generally tried to make more informed choices that of course is something where there is a food safety aspect in there because food safety as far as the consumer is concerned of course is also a question of making informed choices and the last aspect I want to mention is related to cooking and eating not surprisingly we have been seeing a rise in the number of meals that people have at home with their family we also have seen a process where people go back to common family meals and spend more time in the kitchen and actually seem to be enjoying doing that which is from many perspectives for example from health perspective is actually a good development but of course also moves that some of the food safety aspects that are normally handled by professional meal providers are now moving into the household to which extent these changes will last after the pandemic of course we don't know we've been asking people to which extent they think they will last and based on that and based on my own view I've been doing research and consumer behavior in the food area for a long time I think I can dare say there are probably two things that we will be faced with also in the future I think the stronger focus on health and sustainability will probably prevail because we had a trend that was ongoing already before the pandemic and now it has been reinforced by the pandemic because it has been a good environment for changing your ingrained habits and secondly I think we will have a change in channels of distribution because there will be more working at home some of the trend towards having more families family meals will probably also remain so we probably will have new channels of distribution which are shorter channels of distribution more home delivery more direct farm sales and I'm sure that also has some food safety aspects. Thank you, thank you Klaus for a very informative but also a brief update and for putting the spotlight on some of the areas which are more relevant to food safety and we I just want to say that we have more or less used all our time but for those of you we are going to continue for another 15 maybe a little bit more minutes so please do stay with us if you have time and we would like to now I will hand over to we would like to conclude a few more sessions rather briefly but we hope you can stay with us I would like to hand over to Peter Hoysman from WHO to handle some of your questions and also to have a conclusion discussion a little bit forward looking Peter over to you, thank you all right thank you Mary and thanks to the panelists and the participants for all your questions I see there is a lot of discussion already going on in the Q&A section of the webinar and a lot of questions have already been answered here but there has been one particular question and now that we will be looking more forward on how do we now deal with food safety management food safety risk management as we move forward and as the pandemic is still evolving there is still quite a long way to the end of this pandemic so what are the lessons learned and how do we best move forward and Jeff there has been some questions here in the chat and you highlighted some of it in your presentation about this issue of food products being the vehicle for contamination of the SARS-CoV-2 virus foodborne virus as such but still there has been some evidence and some articles highlighting that issue of food products potentially or maybe evidently contaminating workers or potentially also consumers what is your view on that latest kind of development and scientific findings and is it something that country should be concerned about maybe put control measures in place as we move forward I think it's kind of gotten a little bit out of hand in terms of the media has gotten in front of the science and yes as I mentioned because of the prevalence of contaminated workers in the food processing and food production people are going to get sick they're going to cough and if they're not wearing masks or if they don't have appropriate hand hygiene that can contaminate the food environment so if contamination occurs you're going to be able to detect virus say with PCR and occasionally because of the survival or persistence of viruses in cold moist environments I mean if we want to survive archive them in the laboratory what we do is we put them in the freezer and we pull them out later for study so it makes sense that we can find them on frozen products or packaging however it is important to note that that does not mean that is going to infect a person when we find the contaminated product it's a difficult cycle to determine whether it was the worker that contaminated the product or the unlikely event that the product contaminated the worker because when we find them it looks as if the concentration of virus is particularly low we don't know the amount of virus required to infect a person but every time you have a transfer event from a hand to a mouth or from a mouth to a surface to a product to a hand to a mouth the concentration will go down and down each time and make it remotely unlikely that the contact will end up in an infection so without any epidemiological evidence that people are becoming infected and from food or food packaging it's a threat but not necessarily a concern for food safety it's a concern for a trade but not for food safety hopefully I can't make that into clear yeah thank you for that just on your last point we've seen it being a concern and I think one of our panelists also mentioned this it has restricted some of these exports of meat to certain countries it should not I think that's also important to highlight that it should not be an issue of trade restrictions or a justification of trade restrictions and I think that's very important and COVID or SARS-CoV-2 virus is not a food safety hazard and I think that's also important to highlight okay thank you for that now Tim you have highlighted and some of these previous speakers in the panel highlighted that the pandemic itself has highlighted some of the vulnerabilities of our food safety systems now moving forward and to improve the resilience of systems for the next pandemic I mean we don't know when the next will come but most likely there will be another one at certain times what do you think have been the lessons from this pandemic that we can take forward and help us to strengthen food safety systems and the resilience in times of emergencies yes thank you Peter I think it's indeed a good opportunity to reflect on possible improvements in that direction from the commission side just to give you a flavor we're looking in 2016 at the projection of challenges to food safety nutrition in 2050 we were looking at challenges which were perhaps of you know would be in a discussion you would have organized last year impact of climate change scarcity of resources etc on developments in food safety now we have of course to learn I would say if I take the standard thinking or approach of the FAO even to say that food system should be geared up to have situational awareness proactivity and be continuous improvement I would say what we need is really good detection capacity for any kind of incidents of any kind of source so of course in a multidisciplinary approach biological chemical other agents relevant in that context separate this let's say detection capacity regarding incidents from a general monitoring of trends and ideally I would say this should be done on a de-central basis so de-centralized basis but then also have a mechanism in place for early warning and coordination of the response and probably for the coordination of the response you need a clear mechanism for some kind of central structure of course from the commission side together with our member states we are always thinking about the official structures of the control authorities but maybe some approaches pertaining to co-regulation bringing the stakeholders on board using their systems their surveillance systems for their own production processes and so on to a greater extent could also help of course at the end we need also a clear communication we need to reach out to consumers to make sure that consumer trust in our system is maintained whatever the challenge that come and be probably in a kind of I would call it a kind of mental state of preparedness at any time I mean the challenge will be there is it a new pandemic is it another threat we don't know that we have to be in a state of preparedness we have to have a toolbox and we have also to be in a continuous dialogue I would say with stakeholders and of course then of course us in Europe with our trading partners on the best mechanisms to face those challenges great thank you for that and highlighting also the issue that we don't know if the next pandemic would be a food safety related pandemic maybe it's unsafe food causing the next pandemic so we have to be prepared in terms of being a food safety pandemic but also how do we manage food safety during times of pandemics as we now see it with COVID so there are kind of two angles to that and I think it's important to highlight both of them now just going back to the consumer perspective clouds I wanted to also ask you there has been a lot of media reports over the last month about the food fraud and this lesson controls by the food safety authorities have signed a kind of given more freedom for businesses to go into kind of food fraud is that something we don't really know that's evidence based we don't think we have seen official reports as such but at least that's what we communicated in the media is it something consumers have raised concerns about that levels of food fraud is increasing is it something that has been brought up to your study and you are muted class you are still muted now you can hear me right? yes no not in this study and the research on previous incidences of food fraud and other food scares shows that the effect says on consumer behavior is short term people get concerned for a short while and can have rather drastic effects on their buying behavior but then it levels off in most cases relatively quickly goes back to normal and after a year at the latest everything as it used to be before and it has not been mentioned in this particular context here alright alright thanks but yeah I think we have seen that for many issues the memory time span of consumers is typically very low that's probably also the case here okay we still have a little bit of time I wanted to question to the private sector and I think we will just have one of you to answer I don't know who wants to take it but I wanted to ask you from a private sector perspective the changes that we have seen in official food control because of the pandemic we have heard issues about remote inspection e-certifications and so on how do you see us moving forward what has been kind of the positive things of these changes that you have seen from a business perspective and that you would like to see maybe become more permanent food control measures as opposed to just these temporary measures because of the pandemic have you seen any positive changes that you would like to see kind of changing into more permanent measures from the private business perspective I don't know if you Mr. Lapa or Abdasilov from Kazakhstan who of you would like to take that one if I may just a few words from my side as I said majority of the initiative which I described it was initiative last year so it was not like pandemic solution it's a more long term strategy in Ukraine it's just overall a governmental program of there is a governmental program of administration and it's a process which going on independently on pandemic if I would say so but pandemic of course make it moving faster and it provides some solution for specific question of pandemic but overall we understand that business is ready to use more digital tools to communicate modern instruments with company authority in this respect it's win-win situation for company authority and for business okay thank you and maybe the same question to our food authority representative Mr. Tingis from Georgia you have also highlighted some of the changes that you have been kind of forced to implement in Georgia because of the pandemic do you think there are some of these measures turn in or some of these positive learnings from these measures that could turn in to be more permanent new ways of food control nobody says we have to go back to the old normal maybe we have to go into the new normal so from your perspective as a food safety authority what do you see as the new normal in this regard Can you repeat the question please I'm joining Sure I was wondering from safety authority perspective what has been the learnings from the temporary measures that you had to put in place in Georgia to manage food safety during the pandemic some of these what has been the positive science that you have seen which you could maybe turn in to be more permanent food control measures in your country Food safety I'm thinking of food safety chemical food safety microbiological food safety that type of food safety not I can't answer this question because we have regulations that we are looking for small departments by the way we also have free trade from the end and we are looking for our regulations on the basis of European regulations this is let's say a genetic package and so on on the basis of these regulations we are checking the business operator at the time of state control that is, inspection now we going from the pandemic together with the Ministry of Food Safety they have written many rules I told you about the distinctions masks need to be brought disinfected hands and so on at this moment it is necessary in the future if the pandemic actually goes away I can't say in advance that we have left these requirements because all business operators want to simplify the requirements they are complicated we will solve this after the pandemic thank you for your question Thank you very much for that and indeed we don't know how the future will look like we can only see what has been interesting to see how this will evolve in Georgia and in other countries of the region there was one question in the Q&A section from Ryan that I know Klaus you would like to give an answer to and it's related to restaurants and how we can rebuild consumers confidence in going out eating so Klaus over to you the question was whether restaurants or how restaurants can rebuild consumer confidence or whether consumers remain sort of being afraid of being close together in the closed room in the restaurant and whether that could be a problem for the hospitality industry first of all I wouldn't be so concerned about that I think that's one of the areas where consumer behavior most likely will return to normal and the short period here in Denmark the restaurants were open you could see that people were resuming old patterns relatively quickly but apart from that I think there are two things that can play a role first of all in at least in those countries where people trust their authorities I think certification by authorities visible certification can play a really big role like in Denmark we have the smiley system by the authorities in restaurants everybody can see that it's highly visible I think that has a very reassuring effect to consumers the other thing because safety is something which is invisible you cannot see there's a virus somewhere it's very important to provide visible cues to the consumers something that is tangible so if you have a very neat clean bottle of disinfectant at the entrance consumers directly get the impression that here's this a place where people are on top of these safety issues so general neatness providing arrangements of tables that are a bit different people wearing masks disinfectants I think all of these aspects should be visible to the customer they will contribute to recreating the confidence okay excellent thanks Klaus I think in the interest of time we have to draw the webinar to an end but thank you very much for all your active participation all your questions, the answers the debate that has been ongoing here we are the issue doesn't stop here because the webinar ends we are here to help answer questions you may have and to continue the dialogue help countries move forward in time of COVID and disasters and emergencies in general so with this thank you very much for my end I will hand it over to you Mary for the final remarks thank you very much Peter and thank you all to all our panelists and to all our contributors and our presenters in today's session I think we've covered many many issues many relevant to food safety but in addition broader issues related to health and food and our food systems and I also enjoyed the future looking discussion on what and how some of the impacts of COVID-19 will be short living maybe but maybe some are more into the future in terms of how we continue to improve our food systems but also how we handle food safety control from a government and from a private sector point of view there probably are some medium or longer term impacts I'll just conclude by saying that today was really a snapshot discussion and exchange but very interesting but definitely this is an area of work where we continue to work with member countries and across the region to facilitate information sharing but also to better understand what are some of the impacts and relevant issues to safety control and management as we go forward so you will hear from us after the webinar as well with some of the links and presentations as we explained and so thank you from FAO and WHO side we also will reflect over the discussion and the questions in particular and see where we may continue our work with you as well so we have gone over time I apologize for that but it was a very rich discussion so let's conclude the webinar. Thank you and have a good rest of the day to everybody thank you again bye bye


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