Food safety and quality

1. Food safety and quality Strengthening national food control systems

2. WHO,FAO, WTO,OIE,Worldbank-a global approach!

4. It’s Time For The Change

6. Food Safety • Introduction

7. Challenges forfood control authorities • Increasing burden of food borne illness and new and emerging food borne hazards. • Rapid changing technologies in food production, processing and marketing • Developing science based food control systems with focus on consumer protection

8. continue • International food trade and need for harmonization of food safety and quality standards • Changes in lifestyles, including rapid urbanization • Growing consumer awareness of food safety and quality issues and increasing demand for better information

9. Foodborne diseases It has been estimated that millions episodes of diarrhoea that occur globally each year, many resulting in death, are directly caused by biological contamination of food

11. Resulting in 3 millions death amount children under five (mainly in developing countries)

12. continue • Food borne diseases rising trends in number of food borne diseases such as salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis and infections by E.coli O157:H7, have been observed

13. Food control • Many food control systems need to be revised and strengthened • Food control must be based on modern concept of risk assessment • Responsibility is shared between different agencies or ministries in most countries

14. Food control • The roles and responsibilities of these agencies may be quite different and duplication of regulatory activity, fragmented surveillance and lack ofcoordination are common

15. Food safety, quality and consumer protection • Food safety refers to all those hazards whether chronic or acute that make food injurious to the health of the consumer • Quality includes all other attributes that influence a products value to the consumer

16. Quality includes: • Spoilage • Contamination with filth, discoloration. • Off odors • And positive attributes such as origin, colour , flavour, texture and processing methods

17. Food control • Defined as a mandatoryregulatory activity of enforcement by national or local authorities to provide consumer protection and ensure that all foods during production ,handling, storage processing and distribution are safe, wholesome and fit for human consumption; conform to safety and quality requirements; and are honestly and accurately labelled as prescribed by law

18. Specific concerns about food hazards • Microbiological hazards • Pesticides residues • Misuse of food additives • Chemical contaminants, including biological toxins • Adulteration • Genetically modified organisms

19. continue • Allergens • Veterinary drugs residues • Growth promoting hormones

20. Consumers expect protection from hazards occurring along the entire food chain from the primary producer through consumer-FARM TO TABLE approach_

21. Protection will only occur if all sectors in the chain operate in an integrated way and food control systems address all stages of this chain!!!!!

22. Food control system: • Is the integration of a mandatory regulatory approach with preventive and educational strategies that protect the whole food chain

23. Ideal food control should include: • Effective enforcement of mandatory regulatory approach • Training • Education • Community outreach programmes • Promotion of voluntary compliance • Preventive approaches as HACCP • Industry taking greater responsibility

24. SUCH AN INTEGRATED APPROACH facilitates improved consumer protection; effectively stimulates agriculture and the food processing industry and promotes domestic and international trade

25. Global consideration: • International trade • Codex alimentarius (see power point presentation) • SPS/TBT Agreement (see power point presentation)

26. Continue global considerations • Expanding world economy • Liberalization of food trade • Growing consumer demand • Development in food science and technology • Improvements in transport and communication • International trade in fresh and processed food

27. continue • Access of countries to food export markets will continue to depend on their capacity to meet the regulatory requirements of importing countries

28. Codex alimentarius commission-CAC • Coordinates food standards at the international level • Objectives are to protect the health of consumers • It has formulated international standards for a wide range of food products and specific requirements covering pesticides residues, food additives, veterinary drug residues, hygiene, food contaminants, labelling etc

29. continue • Also activities based on risk assessment to address microbiological hazards in foods • To summarize: a continuous appraisal of the principles of food safety and quality at the international level

30. SPS and TBT agreements • Both these agreements are relevant in understanding the requirements for food protection measures at the national level and the rules under which food is traded internationally

31. The SPS Agreement confirms the right of WTO member countries to apply measures to protect human ,animal and plant life and health

32. The agreement covers all relevant laws, decrees, regulations, testing, • inspection, certification and approval procedures and packaging and labeling requirements directly related to food safety

33. Member States are asked to apply only those measures for protection that are based on scientific principles only to the extent necessary and not in a manner which may constitute a disguised restriction on international trade

34. The Agreement encourages the use of international standards,guidelines or recommendations where they exists and identify those from Codex to be consistent with provisions of SPS

35. Thus the Codex standards serve as a bench mark for comparison of national sanitary and phytosanitary measures

36. The TBT Agreement requires that technical regulations on traditional factors fraudulent practices ,packaging ,labeling etc imposed by countries will not be more restrictive on imported products than they are on products produced domestically

37. It also encourage use of international standards

38. Why Control Imported Food ? • Protect the Public Health • Satisfy consumer demand for quality and safety • Enhance quality food trade internationally

39. Why Control Exported Food ? • To ensure that mandatory requirements of importing countries are met • To promote country’s reputation • To allow local industry to better compete on international trade

40. Food safety • THE WORLD WIDE WEB

41. Elements of National Food Control System: • Objectives • Scope • Building blocks (food law and regulations ,food control management ,inspection service .laboratory services)

42. Elements of National Food Control System-objectives: • Protecting public health by reducing the risk of food borne illness • Protecting consumers • Contributing to economic development

43. scope • Should cover all food produced, processed and marketed in the country • Systems should have a statutory basis and be mandatory in nature

44. Building blocks • Food law and Regulations :the development of relevant and enforceable food laws and regulations is an essential component of a modern food control component

45. Food law and regulations • Traditionally: legal definitions of unsafe food and enforcement tools and punishing/reactive and enforcement oriented • General food control agencies had no clear mandate to prevent food safety problems

46. Continue food legislation • In addition to legislation, government need to update food standards

47. In recent years many highly prescriptive standards have been replaced by horizontal standards that address the broad issues involved in achieving food safety objectives

48. Continue food legislation Should include • Must provide high level of health protection • Should include clear definitions to increase consistency and legal security • Based on high quality, transparent and independent scientific advice following risk assessment ,risk management and risk communication

49. Continue food legislation • Should provision for use of precaution and the adoption of provisional measures where an unacceptable level of risk to health has been identified and where full risk assessment could not be performed

50. Continue food legislation • Should include provisions for the right of consumers to have access to accurate and sufficient information • Should provide tracing of food products and their recall in case of problems