Crowns for food hygiene in Colombo city

Eateries to be graded under joint program:

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

Ind-Expo Certification (Pvt) Ltd, a joint venture between the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) and the National Chamber of Exporters (NCE) will launch the ‘Crowns for Food Hygiene’ scheme with the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) shortly.

This is a new grading system to upgrade food safety and hygiene standards of food manufacturing and catering industries within the city limits, Indexpo certification Chairman A K Ratnaraja said.

The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries (CNCI) last year and the action plan is in progress now.

The core objective of the ‘Crowns for Food Hygiene’ is to encourage food catering establishments to practice safer food hygiene practices offering safer and hygienic food to their patrons.

This is a voluntary scheme for all in the food industry.

According to the grading system there are up to five crowns and one crown indicates poor status two indicates fair, three, four and five indicate good, very good and excellent respectively. These crowns would be valid for one year. It would be an additional advantage as more clients would patronize their outlets.

The successful award winning establishments will be able to put on show the number of crowns they had received. Ind-Expo has carried out a series of internationally recognized training programs as put down by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, in United Kingdom - (CIEH -UK) Level one and Level two training on food safety management.

The project is supported by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) IP Program phase two in Sri Lanka.

This in turn is implemented in affiliation with the Ministry of Industrial Development, under the project - Strengthening International certification capacity in Sri Lanka.

It has particular reference to Social Accountability Standard (SA 8000) and Food Safety (HACCP/ISO 22000) Standard and is a project funded by the Norwegian Government.

Ind-Expo is in addition, a registered centre of the CIEH - UK.

It is authorized to deliver Food safety, environmental management and occupational health and safety qualifications within Sri Lanka. CIEH-UK is also one of the leading providers of internationally accredited vocational training qualifications in food safety and related subjects.

Ind-Expo has conducted a series of training programs of the CIEH to train over 200 trainees from all catering and manufacturing industries in Sri Lanka.