Common understanding of food safety

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Carol Barnao

By Carol Barnao

It’s not often that New Zealand gets a mention in United States White House reports.

The December 2011 report to President Obama from the President’s Food Safety Working Group outlines ground-breaking work that has been taking place between American and New Zealand food safety officials on a comparability agreement that will ultimately make it easier for our food producers to get their product into the US market.

The notion of comparability is based on countries recognising that producing safe food can be achieved in various ways. It challenges the way the world has traditionally done exports, where countries have demanded that exporters produce products according to the standards the importing countries’ producers are governed by – no matter the level of detail or importance these standards have in the overall delivery of safe food.

This new way of thinking recognises that an importing country’s borders cannot be its first line of defense against products that do not meet its requirements for safety and suitability, because it’s impossible to catch all bad products. Rather than border testing, regulators and importers alike want assurances that food safety measures have been built in at the point of production or manufacture of the imported products, and they want to know these systems have been credibly audited.

Essentially, comparability is about two countries with equivalent food safety systems agreeing that – for a range of products – they won’t necessarily be interested in the nitty gritty of individual food safety standards. Instead they will rely on assurances that each country can provide safe food through its overall programme, including testing and inspection.

Once a country’s food safety system is deemed comparable, the importing country would no longer need to focus so much attention on carrying out inspections in the country where food is produced, or carry out extensive sampling of product coming across the border. They will have faith in the exporting country’s systems to have ensured the food is safe and suitable.

Needless to say, in order for countries to work out comparability agreements, there has to be a high degree of trust and an absolute understanding that you and your trading partner are on the same page in terms of your food safety aims and expectations.

A huge amount of work goes ahead of signing a comparability agreement, including in-country validation of the exporting country’s regulatory systems. In the case of our work with the Americans for example, in one calendar year the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) officials spent the equivalent of 90 working days here looking at our production plants, cold store facilities, verifiers, accreditation authorities and so on.

They like what they have seen and I’m hopeful the signing of an agreement is not too far off.

I believe that the USFDA selected New Zealand as the first country to work with on a comparability agreement because we have a robust export system. Their decision also reflects the fact that we are easy to work with. Thanks to this work, we are well ahead of the Americans’ work with other trading partners.

Comparability agreements will be very important for MAF to help us achieve one of the key goal’s of our new strategy, which is to maximise export opportunities by removing unnecessary barriers to trade. The reality is that there are substantial tangible benefits to exporters, whose products are ‘green laned’ and as such reach their destination without much inspection along the way.

Carol Barnao is a member of the FOODtechnology Advisory Panel and deputy director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Standards branch. Before this, she was NZFSA director of the Assurances and Standards Group which provides assurances that New Zealand food and related

products are safe and suitable to eat. Carol has a strong background in the dairy industry. Before joining MAF 12 years ago, she was for 18 years involved in the dairy industry. She has held various positions with the New Zealand Dairy Board. She is a food technologist and a fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology.

If you have questions for Ms Barnao or suggestions on areas of interest in her specialist area, e-mail editor Mike Bishara at [email protected], reference Carol Barnao.

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