Episode 17 - A life leading on food safety

Intro (00:09:22)

Science on the Menu. A podcast by the European Food Safety Authority.

Ed (00:21:14)

Hello and welcome to another episode of Science on the Menu.

Today we're joined by Bernhard Url, the Executive Director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Really happy to have you on the podcast Bernhard, welcome.   

Bernhard (00:35:21)

Thank you very much. Ed. Thanks for having me. 

Ed (00:38:06)

Bernhard, you've been Executive Director of EFSA now for almost ten years, and that's actually half the lifespan of EFSA, which was set up following a series of food crises in the nineties.

If you look back at that time in the nineties, where I guess the most notable food crisis was BSE (mad cow disease), what are the changes that you've seen since then? How far have we come since that dark period for food safety? 

Bernhard (01:08:21)

Let me go back for a moment to the end of the 1990s.

I was working in food safety in Austria, but not in a public organization, and it was the height of the BSE crisis. Then, they had a big conference in Brussels, only about BSE, with Franz Fischler, with Emma Bonino, with all the big shots of the prion research. 

And I was given the allowance to go there. I went there - huge conference - and I listened to the guys, the virologists, and the epidemiologists. It was like opening my eyes and I thought: we have to do something different in the future. I thought it for Austria, we have to do something different. We cannot continue like that: we need something more holistic, we need an independent risk assessment, we need different risk communication. 

And that was then introduced on the European level with our founding regulation. It was a real paradigm change, meaning that the onus for food safety was put on the food business operators and EFSA was founded. Risk communication was given the place. And there we started a new chapter of food safety in Europe. And I think - when you look now, 20 years later - we have achieved a lot. The Member States have done many things, many organisations have been created in the Member States, and with EFSA we have achieved a completely different level of cooperation in Europe. I think it's much better now. 

Ed (02:40:08)

A really direct question that people would ask is: ‘Can we say the food safety system is better, food is better, food safety is also better?’

Bernhard (02:49:13)

Yes, for sure. Food safety is much better. You can see many indicators. How long does it take if there is a food incident? We can solve it much faster. And we have much better systems to control food safety. We have less incidents. So, I think food safety in Europe is really top. 

Ed (03:11:24)

And yet there are people, well we read it in the newspapers, who will say: ‘But what about the pesticide residues in food, chemicals in food, all those additives listed on food, the processing of food?’ - what would you reply to that? 

Bernhard (03:27:14)

Well, that's one of the main tasks of EFSA, to make sure that the residues of pesticides and the amount of additives, the additives we use in food production, are safe. 

There is a paradigm in food safety and in food chemistry that below a certain amount, below a certain level, residues, even if you don't like them, they are safe. We are making sure that this is developed on a scientific basis and the Member States make sure that their food law is implemented and enforced. So, altogether the food in Europe is safe, which doesn't mean it is free of residues. That's not the case. 

Ed (04:09:02)

We've talked a little bit about the past, where we've come from. Let's look a bit into the future. 

If we take the next ten years or so and look at some of the big trends right now, technology being one of them, changes in science also. What do you see there as some of the threats and the opportunities for food safety going forward? 

Bernhard (04:28:17)

Again, let me go a little bit back.

If you think in in bigger terms, after the Second World War the biggest desire, the biggest challenge, was food security: to have enough calories to eat. Agriculture and food industry have solved this problem in the 1950s, 1960s.

So, food security was then as maybe as of the 1970s, a given. Then food safety came into play. We don't only want to have enough to eat, we want to have safe food to eat and the Member States and EFSA played a crucial role in that. With this availability of food, and safe food, suddenly nutrition became a much bigger role: do we eat the right things? Because what we know is, even safe food can make us ill if we eat it in the wrong way. 

Balanced nutrition became and is still one of the main topics of food. Now another level comes in, which is sustainability. The question is not only to have enough food to eat, to have safe food, we also have to think about balanced diets and the requirement to produce this food within sustainable food systems. 

That is, I think, the biggest challenge of the future, especially for Europe, but not only for Europe. Sustainability: how can you make sure that in 2050, almost 10 billion people will have something to eat without ruining the planet? 

Ed (06:01:05)

What about technology in all this? We're seeing rapid developments in technology. I'm talking about genetic technologies, artificial intelligence and other ways of producing food, cell culture-derived foods, for example. How do you see that impacting the food system and a food safety body like EFSA? Can it respond quickly enough to these changes? 

Bernhard 06:24:05

That's a very important question. 

In my view, we will have to change the way the agrifood system works in Europe - it is not sustainable. I think there's no doubt about that. This diagnosis, almost everybody would share. Food system, and the agrisystem in Europe, has to be transformed. Innovation is a key lever for this transformation. Innovation, for example, in pesticides, which means low-risk or lower risk pesticides. We need innovation in genome techniques like the new genome techniques like Crispr-Cas and others. Innovation in feed additives so that the ruminants emit less methane, for example, innovation in food packaging, in recycling.

We will need innovation as one enabler for this transformation. It's not the only one. I'm not saying here ‘genome technique will solve the problems of this world’, for sure not. But it's one of many ingredients we will need for this transformation. Another one, a very important one to avoid, is food waste which we sometimes forget, but we could save 30% of all our food production by not wasting food. So, innovation will play a very important role, and all these innovations need to be safety assessed. They will come to EFSA’s door to be assessed and we have to be ready with methodology to do that. That's a big challenge for EFSA: preparedness for the future safety assessment needs. We are investing a lot of brainware and money into this preparedness question.

Ed (07:56:04)

Does that mean a lighter touch on risk assessment, or you can keep the same thoroughness of the assessment, but do it quicker? 

Bernhard (08:02:22)

I think it's both quicker, but also more holistically, for sure in partnership with others. 

So, speed is a question. I think EFSA is not in all of its branches as fast as we could be and as we should be. We hear this feedback from our stakeholders. One of the main feedback I hear the most is: ‘EFSA does excellent science, but sometimes you're a bit slow EFSA’. We are working on that speed of risk assessment. 

But it's not only about speed, it's also about having the methodologies, having the data, and having the expertise that will be needed in the future to assess completely new products, completely new processes. We need, what I would call, ‘fluid intelligence’ of this organization to be able to absorb the complexity of the future. That's very challenging. 

Ed (08:55:11)

We've talked a bit about some of the challenges, some of the interesting developments, let’s say, going forward. Another really important event coming up, at least at an EU level, is the elections that will happen. We're recording this in April, they will happen in June for the European Parliament. That could bring interesting changes for the EU. How do you see, in general terms, the political climate? Food safety relies a lot on the integration of Member States: sharing data, responding quickly. Are there possible threats to this at an EU level?

Bernhard (09:32:09)

I go back and tell a story about where I come from.

When I was a child, my mother often told me when she was a child - she was about 13, 14 years old -at that time she had to walk to her secondary school about one hour a day in each direction. It was five kilometres, and it was the year 1944. 

There was war and where she lived, this was an industrial area, so there was a lot of fighting at the railway stations, on the railway tracks. She told me very often she had to run to find shelter. She had to jump into a ditch. She had to hide behind the tree because these low flying fighter planes were chasing trucks and trains, and she could become a target. 

Of course, that's not the worst thing that happened in these times - I'm not telling it because of that. It just reminds me that this war was one generation before me. I'm not talking about the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was my parents. 

There was war, there was hunger, there was destruction, there was so much suffering. And it was the European Union which tried to overcome this war, to try to overcome the hundreds of years of wars between Germany and France and other countries. And we have it now with the union.

I find this is the most important aspect of the European Union, is that we have peace. Now we take it for granted, nobody talks about that. I have the feeling that everybody says ‘Yeah, of course we have peace’. No, of course we don't have peace by default - look at Ukraine. I think that the European Union is by far the most important project of this continent. We have to fight for it in a positive way. We have to stand up, we have to team up, we have to speak up for liberal democracy: it is our duty as civil servants. 

I would say we have a first duty here at EFSA to work on food safety, for sure - that's why we are here. But we have a second duty: to defend, to speak for the liberal democracy and the elections in June are an opportunity to express what you think should happen in Europe.

So, I only can invite everybody to vote - whatever they vote, that's not up to me, but vote. Express your view - it's so important for Europe. 

Ed (11:54:24)

That's so interesting. When, as you say, it's living memory for us, the devastation of war etc. 

You mentioned Ukraine there and the fact that there are security threats on Europe's borders. We look across also to the Middle East where there's conflict, there's tension. 

Looking at food safety, do you think there's maybe a risk somehow that attention will be shifted away from the safety of food and more towards security, national security, security of food, etc. and that safety takes a backseat in terms of funding, is that something that could happen? That we see the situation and almost think: ‘We’ve done enough now, things are working fine’. Could that be a risk going forward? 

Bernhard (12:43:00)

I think I see what you mean. 

You know what we say? We say: if it's not safe, it's not food. So, there's no food security without food safety. Food has to be safe, otherwise it's not food. 

I think there will always be a European investment in food safety to keep this level because we cannot take it for granted. Yes, we are in a good position, we know that but think if something like COVID had happened in the food area. If it would have been transmitted via food - an absolute disaster. We have to be prepared; we have to invest in preparedness.

We see the tendency that food security, or security in general, takes more of a front seat because of the Ukraine war. You've heard the president of the European Commission talking about competitiveness, security, defence as the big topics in the future for the next term of the European Commission, if she would still be the president.

But I think food safety cannot be disregarded. It's a basis for everything. If it's not safe, it's not food. So, I don't see a big risk, but we have to be vigilant, and we have to have our advocacy ready also in Brussels for the new Parliament, the new Commission. How important food safety is, even if people don't think of it in the way they thought 20 years ago after the BSE crisis.

Ed (14:07:17)

You talked about the pandemic there. Maybe that's probably the most transformative and biggest event in your time as Executive Director of EFSA, not directly related to food, as you say, but still it was transformational in terms of how our lives changed. Do you think there are some lessons that can be drawn for the food safety sector from what happened, from the response? How prepared are we for possible ‘food related pandemics’ that could happen in the future? 

Bernhard (14:39:15)

You mentioned one of the biggest learnings is being prepared and you see how much they try to bring out something like a pandemic treaty, a worldwide treaty, which is difficult. And for food it's the same thing: we have to be prepared.

We are investing in preparedness exercises, we work with the Member States, we have the Advisory Forum, we have working groups on preparedness, we work on the transboundary diseases with the European Commission. I think everybody woke up even more after COVID that preparedness is a key enabler, which is easily said - what does preparedness mean in real terms? It means data exchange, which we know is so difficult because of different data formats, different systems. Also, as EFSA for many years we worked with the Advisory Forum on a discussion group on data compatibility, data interoperability. So, preparedness is a key word. Yes, it's about data. It's about methodologies, but it's also about trust. People have to trust each other so that they cooperate. 

Ed (15:47:00)

That's interesting, the issue of trust and trusting EFSA to its job as a scientific body and then understanding that decisions are made on other values maybe beyond science. 

Going back to COVID again, it was really interesting to see scientists, for the general public maybe for the first time, on big TV programs next to politicians. They were really in the public eye providing their scientific advice, which then decisions were taken, quite stringent decisions: to stay at home, to stop doing certain activities. And yet we've seen distrust in these scientific opinions. Is that how you see it? Do you see that there is a risk that the science is not being trusted in the way that it might be in terms of feeding policymaking?

Bernhard (16:42:21)

I think it's not only a risk, it's a reality. You can measure it. The decrease in trust in science, we can see it with polls and COVID has played a major role in that, because the scientific advice, if you look at the US, the US’ CDC and the US’ FDA it has been politicized. It has been politicized for very mean populistic objectives. This, I think it is a very dangerous development. We see also in Europe the distrust in vaccinations, I find it a disaster. 

People in Austria recently, politicians at the highest level are questioning, or let people speak at their conferences, questioning the effectiveness of the polio vaccine. Can you imagine that the polio vaccine that has eradicated polio, that has done so much good globally and now people say: ‘There's no proof that the polio vaccine works’ - it's a disaster. 

That's something we have to face – we don't have good answers to that, we don't really know how can in the era of social media, where you have thousands of voices and populism is on the rise. I read somewhere a sociologist said: ‘You cannot forbid, you cannot censor fake news, but you can dilute them by factual news’. So, we need more factual news to dilute the fake news. I'm not sure that's the best strategy, but it makes sense in a way to me.

We cannot just stay in our science labs and science rooms. I think we have to go out and speak to the people and make it also attractive and encourage people to be curious about science and about all the developments we have thanks to science. From the iPhones to electric cars, it's all based on science. 

So, there are many cases that speak for science, not only food safety and vaccination and maybe we are not doing enough altogether to show to all people what is in it. But also, not to fall into something as if science would be the problem-solver for everything. Science has its place, it's very important, but it's evidence and it's not values. 

Science only supports policy making, it cannot replace it. I was always a bit doubtful when during the COVID crisis, the politicians, for example in the UK, said ‘We are strictly following science’. I always have a bit of a doubt: what does that mean? You can take science into your decision making, of course, but at the end you decide following your value judgment. To say we strictly follow science I thought it's a bit hiding behind science and not taking the accountability of policymakers, and say: ‘We have listened to science, we have weighed the arguments, and we go left now because of what we think it should be done, and we take the accountability for that’. Science is very important, but let's also put science into the overall picture of a society.

Ed (19:58:18)

Another personal question for you, Bernhard. Looking ahead, you've been almost ten years now Executive Director at EFSA. If you wanted to give some advice to your successor, what would that be? 

Bernhard (20:13:17)

Cooperation, European cooperation. We still need to do more to align with the Member States, to align with their strategy, our strategy, to align on a work programme, on a European work programme, not to have the situation that, for example, a chemical like Bisphenol-A is assessed by Member States, and by EFSA, then again by Member States and then suddenly sometimes we even have divergent opinions - that is not useful, it's a waste of money. If we could align on a work programme for the next five years with the Member States, we decide what we do, we do it together using their resources, using our resources, bringing in our sister agencies – the chemical agency, the medicines agency - that is something we have to get better at.

But we are on our way, it's a journey. We started 20 years ago in a disastrous situation after the BSE crisis. We are much further now, and Europe is still young, we are 70 years old - the union. So, it's still an adolescent child, so to speak. I'm very optimistic. I'm very positive. But the European integration, the European collaboration, that's the big thing for me, for the future.

Ed (21:37:10) 

I think that's an excellent note to end this on, Bernhard. Thank you very much. That was a fascinating discussion. Thank you for joining us. 

Bernhard (21:45:13)

Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure for me to talk to you and to our listeners.

Ed (21:37:10)

To everyone listening, please check out our social media channels where you can find out more about the podcast and you can find out previous episodes on our website.

But for now, that's all from us. So please join us again soon. Thank you and goodbye.