Food safety is top agenda of UNIDO, GFSI partnership

IN A GATHERING of international consumer goods industry leaders at the CGF Global Summit in South Africa, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to signify their commitment to a large-scale partnership for food safety.

Both global organizations will combine their expertise to implement "a roadmap for scaling up" by developing large-scale food safety capability building projects in a number of key regions in the global food supply network.

For smaller or less developed companies

This development program will be based on the GFSI Global Markets Program, which sets out how small or less developed food companies can meet the challenge of food safety and gain market access. It will be enabled by UNIDO, benefiting from their specialized experience in industrial development capability building.

The food safety capability program will be implemented in a number of key geographies, starting with China, Southeast Asia and Africa before being continued in further regions.

China: The partnership will scale up food safety capacity building for local food enterprises throughout China in line with the Sustainable Supplier Development Programme (SSDP) and establish the China Food Safety Initiative (CFSI).

Southeast Asia: The aim is to initiate a regional SSDP program, scaling up the UNIDO-AEON Malaysia SSDP programme into a multi-country, and multi-buyer initiative.

Africa: The project will benefit from a strong UNIDO presence to design and build a joint UNIDO-GFSI multi-country, multi-buyer project for Africa on capacity building.

Philippe Scholtès, Managing Director, Program Development and Technical Cooperation at UNIDO, said: “The World Health Organization estimates that up to 600 million people fall ill every year after eating contaminated food. Our collaboration with GFSI will further strengthen and promote multiple benefits of safe food for social inclusiveness, sustainability and industrial development.”

Mike Robach, Chair of the GFSI Board of Directors said, “We are very enthusiastic about the potential to have a bigger impact in these key regions thanks to this collaboration with UNIDO. Multi-sector collaboration is the way forward in achieving food safety across borders and barriers. Our joint efforts within this partnership will take us further and faster towards our vision of safe food for consumers, everywhere.”

The Global Summit in South Africa gathered 800 business leaders of major consumer goods companies to discuss the future of the industry. With the motto Better Lives Through Better Business, The Consumer Goods Forum collaborates with its 400 members to drive positive change and business efficiency, across social and environmental sustainability, health and wellness, end-to-end value chain and food safety through GFSI.