If food is not safe and wholesome, it is not food. Foodborne disease imposes a health burden equivalent to malaria, HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis and costs low- and middle-income countries more than 100 billion USD a year. Moreover, too much food is improperly handled, prone to spoilage, and adulteration, or lacking the qualities people value. Unsafe, low-quality food is a health and economic burden that needs to change.

Our vision is to contribute to a food systems transformation that will lead to safe, nutritious, and delicious food that is accessible and affordable to underserved populations while also being fair. Fair, meaning it does not come at a cost to human livelihoods, the health and welfare of animals, or ecosystem services and sustainability. We strive for safe, fair food.

Food safety in markets of low- and middle-income countries has been ignored and under-invested for too long. We support local markets with food safety support. We want to help enforce food safety research locally and globally by producing excellent evidence and high-profile publications with real-life impact. We strive to forge new collaborations with food technologists that can lead to appropriate solutions and work with behavioural and political scientists to maximise uptake.

Additionally, we aim to focus on import and export markets as a niche but growing sector that can benefit from our risk-based approaches and generate spillovers for the more important domestic markets. Food safety is a quintessential One Health issue, and we will help ensure it is core to high-level policy processes. The One Health paradigm, with its focus on inter- and trans-disciplinarity, is well suited to the complex challenge of unsafe, unwholesome, unfair, and unsustainable food and contributes to reducing malnutrition. We plan to expand from low- and middle-income countries to relevant research in the UK and Europe, bringing the successes of the south to the north. We will support safe and fair food as part of human rights and our vision.