Hygiene & Safety
Working collaboratively to safeguard the integrity and transparency of the global dairy supply chain and ensure dairy food safety.
IDF work in the field of dairy hygiene and safety has several aims. These include ensuring the safety and quality of milk and dairy products. This is vital in ensuring consumers can trust food products that are produced. Additionally, IDF plays a key role in sharing knowledge and best practice related to dairy safety.
Helping the sector deliver safe dairy foods
As an organisation, we strive to create a global consensus on dairy food risk assessment. Moreover, we promote science-based and informed approaches to dairy food safety and quality issues. For instance, to help make dairy safe, IDF advocates a rigorous farm-to-fork food safety and quality approach. This helps ensure that milk and dairy products have been processed, prepared, and handled according to the highest possible global food safety and quality standards.
Importantly, IDF also provides scientific advice on potential risks to dairy food hygiene and safety along the entire dairy chain. For instance, IDF looks at the impact of the food chain on the environment, transportation and storage of food. We also cover food production and innovation and health claims. IDF’s scientific advice is used by decision makers, national authorities, academia, consumer organizations, and the public.
Joint working for dairy food safety
Ensuring dairy food safety and quality for billions of dairy consumers can only be guaranteed through partnership with other organisations. This allows for efficient use of resources, avoids duplication of efforts and sharing workload.
We collaborate with key international organizations such as Codex and many others to ensure the safety and quality of dairy products is continually improving.
Our work to deliver safe dairy covers microbiological, as well as chemical and physical risks. For example, the evolution of testing and monitoring. This alongside issues like residues and contaminants, pathogens and spoilage organisms, antimicrobial resistance, the impact of zoonoses, pasteurization and new classes of hazard control measures, to safeguard and build on the integrity of dairy globally.
Share this page
IDF advocates a rigorous farm-to-fork food approach to ensure dairy products of the highest possible global food safety and quality standards.
Learn more about dairy food safety
The breadth of issues IDF covers in its work is extensive. Find out more about the work we do.
Food Standards
Helping to ensure that consumers can trust dairy products produced around the world.
Read More
Methods of Analysis & Sampling
Facilitating trade and building trust in the dairy sector through standardized methods for the safet...
Read MoreRelated reports & publications
IDF provides a permanent source of authoritative scientific and other information on a whole range of topics relevant to the dairy sector.
Related news & insights
IDF provides a permanent source of authoritative scientific and other information on a whole range of topics relevant to the dairy sector.
World Food Safety Day: Food Safety, everyone’s business
IDF welcomes the first World Food Safety Day, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2018, which will be celebrated on 7 June....
COVID-19: Safety and hygiene of dairy products and personnel
While the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts everyone’s daily lives, the dairy supply chain is also affected. The dairy sector has been recognized around....
Global partnerships critical for food safety in drive towards sustainability: IDF
Collective and concerted global efforts are critical in addressing food safety, an International Dairy Federation (IDF) representative asserted at....
