EU’s new food safety regulations:

More pressure on enterprises -National Director UNIDO

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

The new EU food safety regulations with provisions concerning trace ability, hygiene and control will place additional pressure on enterprises in developing countries to comply with EU requirements, said National Director UNIDO Nawaz Rajabdeen.

He was speaking at the inaugural awards ceremony organised by IND_EXPO Certification (Pvt) Ltd at the Cinnamon Grand last week.

He said that one of the aims of the UNIDO project under the Integrated Program phase 11 is to provide an independent certification body with management inputs and ownership from the private sector such as Ceylon National Chamber of Industries and National Chamber of Exporters.

Indexpo Certification (Pvt) Ltd with assistance from the International certification organisation, United Registar of Systems (URS) plays an important role in providing a credible and affordable certification body mainly for small and medium enterprises, he said. Rajabdeen said with the signing of MoUs the Indexpo certification body will extend their services not only to the food sector but also to other areas.

Director, Trade Capacity Building UNIDO Dr Lalith Goonathilake in his presentation on Trade capacity Building said that this capacity building project was set up as an independent private sector driven certification body with management inputs and ownership from the two Chambers - Ceylon National Chamber of Industries and National Chamber of Exporters, a public private partnership with the following objectives.

Create a pool of Auditors - outside the Certification body, Separating Consulting and Certification business, Enhanced credibility of the certification process, Ensured process transparency and high integrity, Reducing costs to SMEs.

He highlighted several global cases relating to food safety, trade and Sri Lankan products rejected of refused by the FDA and EU.

The ISO 22000 certificates were awarded to three companies (four Certificates) by an internationally reputed Certification body United Registrar of Systems, United Kingdom (URS). The recipients were Ceylon Cold Stores Beverage plant, Ceylon Cold Stores Ice cream plant, HDDES Extracts and Nikini Automation.

The certification is the culmination of a UNIDO pilot project phase 1 under which several companies in the Food processing, Manufacturers of packaging for the Food sector and manufacturers of machinery for food sector were assisted to develop their Food Safety Management system.