World Food Safety Day 2025 Speech
- Jun 10, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 16, 2025
Opening Remark, Video Message
World Food Safety Day 2025, Under the Theme "Science In Action"
10th June 2025
Institut Français de Birmanie
Yangon, Myanmar
Mingalabar,
Thank you for attending this event today here despite it’s held on a working day, Tuesday.
As we all know, MILS has been working on improving food safety in Myanmar since 2012 through various initiatives, products and services. And almost every year, we celebrate World Food Safety with different partners and this year in collaboration with CCI France and IFB.
This year’s theme is Science in Action. Here, I’d like to validate our understanding about Science. We use the word “Science” in many different contexts today such as science as a subject to learn or scientist as a person conducting scientific works. But science in fact is a method of inquiry. It is a systematic approach to understanding the world through observation, experimentation, and the development of testable hypotheses. This is what we call a scientific method.
Here a question pops up. Why is a scientific method important for food safety? Food safety is managing invisibles which we cannot observe with our own eyes. Most of the time, a food safety hazard is more observable only when it’s reaching or exceeding the safety limit. For example, the food is observed to be unsafe to eat only when the taste and odor are noticeably foul. Scientific tools such as laboratory testing are hence key here to detect these deteriorations early enough so the producers can take necessary actions, manage food safety to build brands with trust.
We’ve often believed that trust cannot be measured — especially now, as institutional trust in Myanmar continues to erode. And it’s true: abstract qualities like trust cannot always be captured using conventional metrics. But that doesn’t mean we cannot build it. We can begin to rebuild trust using the scientific tools I’ve mentioned — because trust without evidence is fragile, even dangerous. For trust to endure, it must be rooted in something observable, repeatable, and fair. And science, above all, is humanity’s most trusted method for making the invisible visible. By using science, we don’t just monitor — we reveal. We make the unobservable observable. And in doing so, we build trust — between stakeholders, between producers and consumers, and ultimately, across the very systems that shape our future.
For this reason, today we have strategically lined up a panel of experts who can share their views from different perspectives which our esteemed facilitator Ma Tar Yar will shortly let you know about their brief profiles. Lastly, I want to thank CCI France for their spirit of collaboration even when the topic is technically niche. Ma Tar Yar and colleagues from CCI France have been very helpful in making this event successful. I also want to thank Ma Tar Yar for taking this time to help facilitate this panel despite your very busy schedule. I also want to thank IFB for the kind arrangements on the venue and all the logistic arrangements. And finally, I want to thank the participants who are attending the event today despite it being held on the working day, Tuesday. I believe your time spent today will give you new interesting insights on how to create and maintain successful brands by creating trust through science.
And with that I’d like to conclude my opening remark. Thank you.
END OF SPEECH
