global food safety: a challenge to Philippine food smes"
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In support to enhancing the export performance of selected sectors in the Philippine Food Industry, particularly in a lucrative market such as the European Union where compliance to EU directives on food inspection and quality control has been the major concern of exporters to be able to enter the market, an 18-month project entitled “Capacity Building towards Advancing Philippine Food Safety Standards and Strengthening the Philippine-EU Cooperation on Food Trade” was implemented in the Philippines starting January 2007. The project’s overall objective is to foster cooperation and trade relationships between the Philippines and EU member states through the reduction, if not elimination of hazards/risks in Philippine food production from sourcing of raw materials to production and distribution to local and international consumers of the EU. Further, its aim is to raise the level of food safety awareness and compliance of the Philippine food industry to international standards, specifically the ISO 22000: 2005 Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS).
This project is funded by the European Commission under its Asia Invest Program and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany and implemented by the InWEnt gGmbH of Germany, Consorzio Italasia of Italy, Asia Society for Social Improvement and Sustainable Transformation, Inc. (ASSIST) and the Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC) of the Department of Trade and Industry. Through this joint effort, ten (10) pilot companies exporting or intending to export to the EU market were carefully selected and intensively screened from among 25 applicants to undergo firm level consultancy conducted by three international food consultants and supported by local experts in order to adopt and eventually be aligned to ISO 22000: Food Safety Management System to comply with EU requirements for food products.
These companies are: Moondish Foods Corporation (Taguig City), laing; Zest-O Corporation (Laguna), fruit juices; Navarro Foods International, Inc. (Pampanga), crab paste or taba ng talangka; Markenburg International Foods Corporation (Bulacan), marshmallows; Central Seafoods Corporation (Cebu), pasteurized canned crabmeat and frozen tumbled octopus; Prime Fruits International, Inc. (Tagum City), banana chips; Primex Coco Products, Inc. (Davao Sur), dessicated coconuts; Mega Fishing Corporation (Zamboanga City), canned and pouched sardines; and Permex Producer and Exporter Corporation (Zamboanga City), canned tuna and sardines.
The companies were provided with free services of the 3 international food consultants and local experts who handheld them in identifying gap analysis in all aspects of the food safety management system from ensuring cleanliness of the working area and the surrounding facilities, control measures in the production process, quality sources of raw materials, safe ingredients, water sources, packaging materials, warehousing systems and procedures, machine and tools calibration, product recall and traceability, storage facilities and release of products. From the gap analysis, the companies were guided in analyzing their process flow so that it reflects all aspects of the actual production process; identified hazards and control measures in each step through risk assessment and hazard analysis and by this process determined the critical control points (CCPs) in their operation, prerequisite procedures (PRPs) and operational PRPs. They were likewise guided how to do internal audit, verification and validation. As a guiding principle, the companies walked thru defining their food safety policy and formed their respective Food Safety Team. The consultancy and monitoring sessions provided the companies concepts and procedures to craft their documentation requirements and went through the process of checking the implementation of their documentation and pre assessment of their compliance to ISO 22000 requirements for alignment or certification to ISO 22000.
An add-on component of the project was a study tour to Germany and Italy where the representatives from each company were able to benchmark food producing companies in Italy who are implementing food safety management systems, attended food safety seminars, visited certifying bodies or organizations and specialty shops or stores distributing oriental foods and saw major food trade fairs and met prospective buyers and importers and had initial business arrangements which will be followed up during the IFEX 2008.
For the benefit of other food companies, a series of awareness seminars on ISO 22000 was conducted in major food centers in the country for free to promote the importance of food safety. And to sustain the implementation of ISO 22000 to the rest of the food industry sector members, five (5) local experts went through the training of conducting consultancy services throughout the project implementation done for the 10 pilot companies.
The project will officially end on May 16, 2008 with an Awarding Ceremony to be held at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.