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Food Focus August 2008

Solving food safety crimes

The FBI staked out Hamilton in June (not the American variety but the FoodBorne Illness variety) when NZFSA’s stand arrived at Fieldays

The NZFSA stand was a kid magnet, and since the main aim was to get food safety messages out to as many people as possible this was just what we wanted.

With Fieldays attracting huge numbers (131,629 visitors this year) it’s a great opportunity to interact with some of our key audiences. School groups are an important part of that audience, but making food safety messages attractive to kids is not easy. This year we decided to make a mystery out of the message and get people engaged by having them do some sleuthing. Out of this was born the ‘FBI Case File’!

The stand was built as a crime scene – it had a kitchen with sink, fridge and pantry. ‘Case files’ gave clues about what to look for, such as big handprints (Dad forgot to wash his hands again!) or small paw prints (the cat walked on the bench to lick the dirty pots).

The clues all revolved around the 4Cs food safety message – clean, cook, cover, chill – and the 20+20 hand wash rule – 20 seconds wash + 20 seconds dry = clean hands.

Once through the crime scene, kids could fill out a competition form identifying who was guilty or not guilty of the crimes. The correct entries went into a draw to win a Canon Powershot digital camera, which was won by Rebecca Moss of Raglan, well done Rebecca!