In the week of 28th October 2024 to 1st November 2024, supported by Unilever China food Regulatory Affairs team, scientists from SEAC went to China to carry out a series activities aiming to enhancing food safety in China by advocating the application of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in food safety in China, with key stakeholders across regulators, industries and academia.
Signing collaborative contract with China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA)
We are delighted to announce the signing of a collaboration contract with the China National Centre for Food Safety Risk Assessment (CFSA), a public health institution directly under the leadership of the National Health Commission (NHC) of China. As the only national-level technical institution for assessment of food safety risk, one of the aims of CFSA to enhance China’s management of food safety risk through the application of high quality science.
Dr Paul Hepburn, Head of Regulatory Science - Food Safety, signed the contract on behalf of Unilever, marking the first agreement for a foreign company in collaboration with CFSA in the area of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). This took place at CFSA in Beijing on 29th October, with participation from Dr Dawei Tang (SEAC) and Sandy Li (Regulatory Affairs).
Under the collaboration, Unilever will work with CFSA to estimate human exposure to phthalates and their metabolites using Physiologically Based Kinetic (PBK) modelling. The capability built from the collaboration can benefit both parties in their future risk assessments for food safety using NAMs.
China International Food Safety and Quality (CIFSQ) conference
The 18th China International Food Safety and Quality (CIFSQ) conference was held in Shanghai (30th- 31st Oct), and it is an annual event that bring together >600 high profile regulators, industries and academia to address critical issues and identify recent advances in science, technologies and regulations to improve food safety.
Unilever has been actively using this platform to advocate Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA) for food safety since 2015. This year, Dr Paul Hepburn was invited as a panellist to discuss the opportunities and challenges of applying NAMs in food safety risk assessment, together with panellist from US FDA, EFSA, BfR, CFSA, etc. We also hosted the only whole day session in the conference on the topic of “New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) in Food Safety Risk Assessment”, with speakers from US FDA, EFSA, BfR, CFSA, Nestle, and academia from China, Japan and Korea. In the session, Dr Dawei Tang also gave a talk on the topic of “Application of NAMs in NGRA for food safety”.
These scientific activities will 1) greatly enhance the awareness of NAMs and their applications with NGRA approach in food safety in China; 2) support the future adoption of advanced scientific approaches to food safety assessment and regulatory management of food relevant chemicals in China; and 3) pave the way for our sustainable innovation and growth agenda in China.
During this intense week, we had the incredible opportunity to witness firsthand the strength of the Chinese scientific community in food safety risk assessment and the enthusiasm across the scientific and regulatory stakeholders in China and across the globe to further advance and adopt the “next generation” safety science in food safety risk assessment. We are looking forward to forging strong connections, harnessing their world-class expertise to collaboratively work towards our shared vision of advancing food safety assessment in China.