Building Trust Through Food Safety: ISO 22000, Codex and the Global Agenda

 

Food safety isn’t only about avoiding risks. It is about building trust, resilience, and a reputation for excellence in a world where food is traded, consumed, and relied upon across every border.

ISO has recently brought together the ISO 22000 food safety essentials package, a streamlined way for organizations of all sizes to meet the prerequisites of ISO 22000, the global standard for food safety management. Whether it’s food manufacturing, catering, fisheries, or cross-sector practices, this package provides a solid, scalable recipe for compliance.

What’s inside the essentials package?

• ISO 22002-1: Prerequisite programs (PRPs) for food manufacturing – covering everything from pest control to equipment hygiene.

• ISO 22002-2: PRPs for catering – food trucks, cafeterias, and kitchens of all sizes.

• ISO 22002-100: Cross-sector PRPs – ensuring traceability, food defense, supplier control, and more.

Together, these three standards form a rock-solid foundation for food safety, helping organizations build confidence with regulators, consumers, and international buyers.

Why does it matter globally – and for fisheries?

Food is not just a local matter — it is the backbone of international trade and directly connected to public health. For sectors such as fisheries and seafood exports, food safety standards are particularly critical. These industries depend on consumer confidence in freshness, traceability, and hygiene — any gap in compliance can close international markets overnight.

By adopting ISO 22000 and its supporting PRPs, the fisheries sector can secure greater access to global markets, ensuring that seafood continues to be recognized not only as a valuable food source but also as a sustainable trade commodity.

ISO, Codex and the European Farm to Fork strategy

ISO standards are designed to align and complement the Codex Alimentarius, the global reference for food safety recognized by WHO and FAO. Codex sets the science-based principles, and ISO provides the practical frameworks organizations can use to demonstrate compliance across supply chains.

This alignment is also directly connected to the European “Farm to Fork” Strategy, part of the European Green Deal, which aims to ensure that food systems are fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly. Standards such as ISO 22000 provide the operational tools to make that vision a reality, balancing sustainability and consumer safety.

📌 Learn more about Codex here: Codex Alimentarius
📌 Explore ISO 22000 and related standards: ISO 22000 on iso.org

Food safety on the COP30 agenda

The importance of food safety will also resonate in global discussions such as COP30, where climate change, biodiversity, and food systems are central. A resilient and transparent food safety framework supports sustainability goals, helps protect vulnerable sectors like fisheries from climate-related risks, and enables countries to demonstrate responsible practices in line with climate and trade commitments.

Looking ahead

As supply chains grow more complex, and as the demand for transparency and resilience increases, the role of international standards will only become more critical. By following ISO 22000 and working in harmony with Codex Alimentarius and strategies like Europe’s Farm to Fork, organizations are not just ticking compliance boxes — they are shaping a safer, healthier, and more trustworthy global food system.

Congratulations to ISO and the thousands of experts worldwide who continue to make this possible. Their work is at the heart of protecting consumers and enabling fair, reliable trade in one of the most essential goods of all: food.