The Food Safety Info Line

The Food Safety Info Line provides consumers with science based information to enhance the understanding of food safety, encourage adoption of safe food practices and promote confidence in the Canadian food supply by operating a toll free consumer information service.

The Food Safety Info Line is a toll-free telephone service, staffed by professional home economists. They answer consumer’s food safety questions and concerns relating to:

• Food handling, preparation and storage
• Food production, packaging and labeling
• Quality assurance and food safety programs
• Government regulations and consumer protection
• Agricultural practices (pesticides, organic foods etc)
• Emerging issues such as irradiation, and biotechnology

Our goals are to increase consumer confidence in the safety of Canada’s food supply and to decrease the incidence of foodbourne illness in Canada.

The Food Safety Info Line is staffed by professional home economists with expertise in food safety and food microbiology as well as consumer education. They are adept at risk evaluation.

In Canada, there is no other one-stop information service of this kind for consumers on all aspects of food safety "from farm gate to plate". With increased and widespread media coverage of food safety issues and consumer concern resulting from more frequent foodbourne illness incidences, the need for our services has never been greater.

Our services and programs include:

Consumer Information Service

• We provide consumers in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with current, credible science-based information through our toll-free telephone line. During the five years of operation, yearly call volume has built from 2155 to 3403. Call volume varies seasonally with more than 400 calls responded to during the December holiday period. We are recognized as an important public service and valued as a credible and unbiased information source for all consumers.

• We serve as a credible resource on food safety information to the media in Western Canada.

Educational Resources

• We provide printed educational resources to consumers and the media such as our 12 fact sheets and our "How to Store Food Safely" booklet that we have developed in response to consumer concerns.

• We collect and distribute data to identify, assess and document food safety issues of Alberta consumers and help industry validate quality assurance standards.

Support and Expertise

• We have strong collaborative relationships with provincial and federal governments, agricultural commodity boards and agri-food groups, producers, wholesalers, distributors and retail industries.

• We support our partners in the production of food safety education materials, consumer trade show displays, packaging messages, media releases and newsletters.

• We are well positioned to educate consumers and extend awareness about safe handling of food, food production, processing and distribution, food packaging and labeling and emerging issues such as biotechnology and irradiation.

The Food Safety Info Line, headquartered in Calgary, was launched in June 1995. It is administered by an independent non-profit society. The volunteer board of eight directors represents a broad spectrum of government, academia and the agri-food industry. We receive financial support from agricultural commodity boards, retailers, producers, as well as provincial and federal governments.

For more information contact:

Jane Carlyle, Coordinator
Food Safety Info Line
Box 21, Site 1, RR #7
Calgary, Alberta T2P 2C7
1-800-892-8333
Tel: (403) 287-0098
Fax: (403) 569-1074