VDMA Services convenes third “Experience Exchange Workshop Series on Food Safety along the Food Value Chain”
The VDMA Services workshop supported by the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce for Eastern Africa (AHK Eastern Africa) brought Government and Industry together in an open, informal, honest, one-day examination of the current state of food safety implementation in Kenya.
Industry, Businesses and Stakeholders from the Kenyan Food Value Chain, the Food Safety Regulator (Ministry of Health), members of the National Food Safety Coordination Committee, international organizations, consultants and academia brainstormed on September 17th, examining three critical questions:
- Is food safety implementation working in Kenya?
- Would a Cooperative Model for food safety implementation comprising a collection of enabling partnerships between state and private sector be more effective than the current Adversarial Model?
- How can food safety practices be realistically brought to small and medium enterprise?
The growing concern in the country about substandard food making it to Kenyan homes lends an unmistakable urgency to the issue of food safety. The driving sentiment in the workshop was, “What are we going to do? The situation brooks no delay.”
Mr. Robert Kilonzo, Deputy Director for Public Health and Head of Food Safety and Quality at the Ministry of Health in Kenya, said that the government was very committed to the safety of food making it to Kenyan plates. “We want Kenyans to be assured of the safety of what they are consuming. In this regard, both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock will be engaging in similar stakeholder forums to gather feedback from the country on a clear and accountable way forward.”
“There must be a value chain approach to food safety if resolving the issue is to be fast-tracked. The current focus on growing more food, neglecting issues like storage, cold chains, transportation, packaging, and recycling assures neither food security nor food safety.” said Gordon van der Veen, Chief Technical Adviser for Africa Projects at VDMA Services GmbH.
“Taking a value chain approach also addresses the vital issue of job and income creation. You can grow all the food you like, but there will never be food security if the people have no money to buy the food. This leads us to the key role of small and medium enterprise in job creation and food safety itself. SMEs are imbedded all along the food value chain. There will therefore be no food safety till SMEs are fully integrated into the food safety process. This demands a model which actively assists them in implementing effective food safety processes. The aim of these workshops is to open and sustain conversations and relationships between government and industry stakeholders which could make this dream a reality.”
The “conversation” will continue on February 19, 2020 when the fourth workshop in this series continues.