Retailers sign on to expanded food safety campaign

WASHINGTON--The Partnership for Food Safety Education is targeting retailers for its expanded "Be Food Safe" campaign, which launched Sept. 18. Twenty-six retailers have already agreed to participate.

The revamped program is an aggressive food safety education effort aimed at helping reduce incidence of foodborne illness, according to Shelley Feist, executive director of Partnership for Food Safety Education.
The campaign delivers food safety messages--Clean, Cook, Separate and Chill--through graphics and educational information. Retailers participating in the program will bring the "Be Food Safe" messages to their shoppers through in-store signage, brochures, fliers, packaging and sale circulars, according to Feist. "(The program) lets retailers have a more visible way of sharing information with customers, Feist said. "I like to call it 'having an open dialog.'"

While retailers are the partnership's current targets, Feist said the organization plans to roll out different ways the program can be used by suppliers on packaging.

"We're a small non-profit so we have to rely on people who have marketing platforms in place to get this information in front of the consumer," Feist explained.

Participating retailers include Acme Markets, Albertson's LLC, Associated Food Stores Inc., Atlantic Food Mart, Big Y Foods Inc., Brown & Cole Stores, Buehlers Fresh Foods, Fairview Foods/Piggly Wiggly, Fiesta Mart, Food Lion LLC, Giant Food, Giant Eagle Inc., Hannaford Bros. Co, Highland Park Market, Kings Super Markets Inc., Lund Food Holdings, Meijer Inc., Publix Super Markets Inc., Roundy's Supermarkets Inc., Save Mart Supermarkets, Schnuck Markets, ShopRite, Stop & Shop Supermarkets, Sweetbay Supermarket, Soelberg's Market, Weis Markets Inc., and the Defense Commissary Agency.

The Partnership for Food Safety Education is a coalition of USDA, Food and Drug Administration and other federal agencies, trade associations including Food Marketing Institute and consumer groups. For more information visit www.fightbac.org

Image Courtesy: peoriacountry.org