East African Community & Codex Trust Fund food safety workshop builds collaboration with food business operators
By Maryann Kindiki
Codex Contact Point, Kenya (pictured left)
The Codex Contact Point in Kenya in collaboration with the FAO Country Office held a national food safety workshop in Nairobi, Kenya on 20 July 2022 with the objective of building a solid collaboration between public and private sector towards achieving food safety at national level. The workshop was graced by the presence of FAO Country Representative for Kenya, Carla Mucavi (pictured second left).
The engagements at the workshop were through panel discussions comprising both the private and public sector. This mode was appropriate to encourage free discussions between the audience and the panellists. Conclusively the participants accepted the fact that “Food safety is everyone’s business” and expressed the willingness to entrench the culture of food safety at all levels of the food value chain.
Food Business Operators are responsible for ensuring compliance in their operations with food safety legislation and for the safety of the food they produce. Compliance with food safety legislation is verified by food safety authorities through inspections. Several occasions have however shown that non-compliance is common in food premises and is recurrent. The question we ask ourselves then is who is wholly responsible for this? The answer lies in our actions as food business operators, consumers, competent authorities, and our efforts as individuals not only to be in business but also produce safe food sustainably.
At the workshop presenters discussed food safety and considered how best to enhance collaboration towards a harmonized regulatory environment. They debated issues such as trade interventions and the need for “Growing the culture for Safer Food, Better Health”.
At the regional workshop to launch the East African Community Codex Trust Fund group project, held from 3 to 6 May 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya, individual countries developed a programme of activities at national level to be undertaken under the project. One of the Kenya’s proposed activities was to hold a national workshop on awareness of Codex and Food safety with the objective of increasing effective participation in Codex work.
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Photo credit © Kebs