Mexico Supreme Quality

The Mexican Secretary of Agriculture has launched a new website for its food safety certification system Mexico Supreme Quality (MSQ or Mexico Calidad Suprema).

The tool is dedicated to bringing news and information about the system to importers of Mexican produce and retailfood safety and marketing executivesthroughout the US and Canada.

When completed, the website will feature general information about MSQ, a directory of Mexican products and producers, seasonal recipes and nutritional data as well as a blog archive.

Liz Quintero, MSQ general manager, posted the first official blog entry on 25 February.

In the entry, Ms Quintero highlights a new initiative called the MSQ Ambassadors programme, which aims to set up an advisory board of industry leaders to ensure MSQ has the “valuable input” of the trade in the continued development of its projects and services.

This year, Ms Quintero said MSQ will continue with some of its previous seasons’ successes, such as the Masters of MSQ programme, which awards retail partners who haveexcelled in procurement and promotion of Mexican produce.

“Last season, Safeway was the proud retailerrecipient, as were three key US importer-distributors – perhaps this year it will be you,” Ms Quintero stated.

Producers who complete MSQ’s educational and monitoring programme have access to use the MSQ Seal of Excellence on products and packaging, which illustrates the produce is of high quality and meets stringent import requirements.

MSQ (also known as MexicoGAP) is benchmarked against GlobalGAP protocols and accepted by retailers in Europe, Asia and North America.