Food Safety

International awareness campaign #EUChooseSafeFood

Published: 15 November 2023

In 2023, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) organised the third edition of the #EUChooseSafeFood awareness campaign. This year, 16 countries are participating in the campaign: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, North Macedonia and the Czech Republic.

The #EUChooseSafeFood campaign aims to help citizens in European countries think critically about their daily food choices. The campaign provides consumers with practical and easily accessible information; for example, recommendations on how to read food labels, how to understand additives or how to prepare and store food. In general, the campaign addresses a variety of food-related topics.

The results of the European campaign so far are very interesting, with 44 influencers participating in the campaign, leading to creative and successful results. In total, more than 580 articles were published during the campaign. The initially expected number of stakeholders (institutions, companies) of 82 has been exceeded by many, with a total of 118 stakeholders publishing related information on their websites or social media accounts at the beginning of September.

A special feature of the campaign is the pre- and post-campaign surveys conducted as an online survey, this time in 10 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ireland, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The sample size before the campaign is 500 completed interviews per country (5-minute questionnaire), after the campaign 1000 completed interviews per country (10-minute questionnaire).

In the Czech Republic, this year’s campaign was implemented in cooperation with the Coordination Point for Scientific and Technical Cooperation with EFSA in the Czech Republic (EFSA Focal Point) and focused on providing important information and recommendations to consumers to ensure good food hygiene in the home environment, to reduce food waste and to provide information on EU prevention activities to fight foodborne diseases.

EFSA has published a Final Report on the progress and results of the campaign for each Member State, based on data supplied by the local agencies involved.

Final report on the progress and results of the campaign, Czech Republic: