It was 12:00 PM of October 27, 2014. People got busy, fixing everything as they set for lunch. As everybody is almost done, there came a group of young men in white-and-black uniform, parading upstage with some wooden trays on hand. There they laid three wooden trays at the rostrum set at the center of the platform.

 

Two of them were filled with signatures from the 2010 and 2011 Philippine Food Safety Conference at Waterfront Hotel in Cebu and Crown Plaza Hotel in Ortigas Center respectively. The third one is laid with a plain white blank sheet, ready to accommodate more signatures of commitment to food safety practices from home to work; from farm to market, and even up to the table, where everyone partakes in every meal. This is the third time that such a ceremony is being conducted, this time at Crown Legacy Hotel, right at the heart of Baguio City, the summer capital of the Philippines.

 

Participants to the Philippine Food Safety Forum 2014 lined up the center aisle toward the podium to sign up and express commitment to food safety as part of their daily living, and embed it in a culture of quality-driven Philippine Food Industry. Indeed, it is such a perfect venue for the Philippine Food Industry to become at par with its contemporaries as we prepare for the Philippines; participation to the 2015 ASEAN Economic Integration. Thus, this year's theme goes, "Strengthening Food Safety of the Philippine Food Supply Chain."