UAE residents have been told to wash away their dirty habits and stop the spread of disease. The message from health experts comes after a survey revealed that half of us claim to be too busy to wash our hands and one in four only scrub them when they look or feel dirty.

The Food Standards Agency saw an increase in the number of food incidents it investigated last year. These included reports of contaminated or illegal food entering the food chain, with some potentially harmful to the public.

One word that I hear more and more these days is “transparency.” It comes up in conversations about animal agriculture. It was the main theme at the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit that I attended in Arlington, Va., earlier this month with representatives from the dairy, pork, beef and poultry industries.

Food handlers throughout the supply chain – from workers in field to the supermarket deli – play an integral and vital role in the safety of the products they handle. After all, the policies and procedures that require so much time, money and effort to perfect, are only as good as the training and behavior of the employees following them.