World Accreditation Day - 2012:

Conformity assessment framework for safe food and clean drinking water

Food safety and water quality are two inter-related aspects which consumers will think twice before consumption.

If food or water products are available in the market with third party guarantee as products manufactured or processed to assure food safety and cleanliness, such products can be readily consumed without a second thought.

How can this confidence on food safety or water quality be assured? Conformity assessment by an authorized body, is the process that develops confidence on consumers as to whether the specified requirements of food, water or their manufacturing process are fulfilled.

In the framework of conformity assessment as shown above, food safety or water quality can be assured, if the product is certified for the relevant standard or the food safety management system in which the product has been manufactured or processed is certified by an accredited certification body.

If this attestation, certification bodies should obtain testing services for determining compliance of products from accredited laboratories, Sri Lanka Accreditation Board (SLAB) implements accreditation schemes based on international standards for testing laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025), product certification bodies (ISO/IEC Guide 65) and system certification bodies (ISO/IEC 17021) to provide accreditation services for users and receivers of the above services.

This framework can be further streamlined by regulatory bodies using accredited inspection bodies (ISO/IEC 17020), which provides, inspection on food safety and water quality.