Nutrition, Health, and Disease
7
Introduction
Food has been traded for millennia and conse-
quently some forms of food standards and meas-
urement have developed for a similar long time.
As agriculture, food trade, and sales to consum-
ers changed from local to global, these standards
were set in national, bilateral, regional, and mul-
tilateral settings.
The texts are an evolution of many earlier
attempts to create a food code and were devel-
oped by the Codex Alimentarius Commission
(the Commission)—an international body with
delegates representing more than 99% of the
worlds’ population—working as a “world food
safety and quality parliament” with core values,
common vision, mission, and strategy. The
Commission was established by the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and the World Health Organization
(WHO) in 1963 as the central pillar of the
FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme to de-
velop food safety and quality standards to protect
the health of consumers and ensure fair practices
in the food trade. It also is tasked with promot-
ing the coordination of all food standards work
undertaken by international governmental and
non-governmental organizations. The Commis-
sion’s work is complemented by the pillars of
FAO/WHO food safety scientific advice and ca-
pacity building programs.
Codex texts cover all aspects of food produc-
tion and trade from the producer to the final
consumer. The texts have been recognized spe-
cifically as benchmarks for food safety in the
World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement
on sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures (SPS)
and also are considered in the WTO agreement
on technical barriers to trade (TBT).
The collection of Codex texts (standards,
guidelines, codes of practice, maximum residue
limits [MRLs], and other texts) developed by the
Commission is also known as the Codex Ali-
mentarius.
Codex Past, Present, and Future
As the Commission nears its 60th anniversary in
2023, it has gone through many changes—the
most striking being becoming a reference in
WTO-SPS in 1995 and the subsequent system-
atic integration of the principles of scientific risk
2 Codex Alimentarius Commission:
The World’s Food Safety and
Quality Parliament
By Tom Heilandt
7
Introduction
Food has been traded for millennia and conse-
quently some forms of food standards and meas-
urement have developed for a similar long time.
As agriculture, food trade, and sales to consum-
ers changed from local to global, these standards
were set in national, bilateral, regional, and mul-
tilateral settings.
The texts are an evolution of many earlier
attempts to create a food code and were devel-
oped by the Codex Alimentarius Commission
(the Commission)—an international body with
delegates representing more than 99% of the
worlds’ population—working as a “world food
safety and quality parliament” with core values,
common vision, mission, and strategy. The
Commission was established by the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and the World Health Organization
(WHO) in 1963 as the central pillar of the
FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme to de-
velop food safety and quality standards to protect
the health of consumers and ensure fair practices
in the food trade. It also is tasked with promot-
ing the coordination of all food standards work
undertaken by international governmental and
non-governmental organizations. The Commis-
sion’s work is complemented by the pillars of
FAO/WHO food safety scientific advice and ca-
pacity building programs.
Codex texts cover all aspects of food produc-
tion and trade from the producer to the final
consumer. The texts have been recognized spe-
cifically as benchmarks for food safety in the
World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement
on sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures (SPS)
and also are considered in the WTO agreement
on technical barriers to trade (TBT).
The collection of Codex texts (standards,
guidelines, codes of practice, maximum residue
limits [MRLs], and other texts) developed by the
Commission is also known as the Codex Ali-
mentarius.
Codex Past, Present, and Future
As the Commission nears its 60th anniversary in
2023, it has gone through many changes—the
most striking being becoming a reference in
WTO-SPS in 1995 and the subsequent system-
atic integration of the principles of scientific risk
2 Codex Alimentarius Commission:
The World’s Food Safety and
Quality Parliament
By Tom Heilandt