Institutions Involved in Food Safety: Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI)

Differences in food safety regulations lead to the destruction of safe and healthy foods. They also hamper the movement of food across borders. Because the safety of new products has to be tested following protocols that also differ between countries, the differences also discourage innovation. Often regulations have been developed locally and tend to be changed very slowly, while the world has changed and the movement of food is global. In particular food safety regulations often emerge as a response to food scares and media hypes and then are not supported by science. The Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI) is a global association of food scientists who develop global scientific consensus statements. These statements provide tools for stakeholders to make regulators eliminate undue differences and base regulations on sound scientific evidence.