World Food Prize goes to food safety scientist for preventing foodborne illness cases

DES MOINES, Iowa– A scientist who pioneered modern food safety standards used around the world has been awarded this year’s World Food Prize, the organization announced Wednesday, recognizing his work for preventing millions of cases of foodborne illness and reducing food waste.

Huub Lelieveld of the Netherlands won the award after six decades of promoting ways to improve food safety and advocating for trade regulations that allow safe food to move more easily around the world.

“I just did what I thought was right,” Lelieveld said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I want everyone to have enough food, but… it also needs to be safe. »

Lelieveld began his career as a food researcher at Unilever at a time when the mechanics of making safe food products seemed “illogical” to him, he said.

Food was often sterilized or chemically preserved after production, and equipment had to be turned off once or twice a day for cleaning, which was both difficult and time-consuming. Processed foods also required extensive use of preservatives, salt, sugar and acids to reduce the risk of contamination, which harmed flavor and nutrition.

“I realized very quickly that they were doing things the wrong way, in my opinion,” Lelieveld said. “From the beginning, I worked to… convince people that we needed to do things differently. »

Lelieveld worked with colleagues to develop hygienic production methods and equipment, making food manufacturing more efficient and less dependent on chemicals.

After scaling the processes at Unilever and proving they worked, Lelieveld said the company gave him permission to publish the research for dissemination and use globally.

“My philosophy was: You shouldn’t compete on food safety,” Lelieveld said. “The diffusion of technology, of hygienic technology, was very important. »

Unsafe food causes 600 million foodborne illnesses and 420,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization.

The Iowa-based World Food Prize was founded by Norman Borlaug, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to dramatically increase agricultural yields and reduce the threat of famine in many countries. The Agricultural Sciences Award includes a $500,000 prize.

After four decades at Unilever, Lelieveld founded the Global Harmonization Initiative in 2004 to promote consensus on food and trade regulations around the world. Drawing on a network of a few thousand scientists around the world, the nonprofit organization also works to address critical food safety challenges and facilitate food safety education.

GHI “is extremely useful because it has a huge reservoir of knowledge about food safety and food protection,” Lelieveld said.

Lelieveld said challenges to broad access to safe food and water persist, and he hopes to see a system in which people can produce safe food and water locally, even if the movement of goods across borders is restricted.

“You can’t stop the transport of water through the air with clouds,” he said. “You can produce clean water anywhere, but we need to get this knowledge to the people who need it and that’s the biggest challenge. »