Food assurance body EurepGAP has rebranded itself as GlobalGAP at the eighth annual conference in Thailand.

The name will reflect the organisation’s increasingly international role, which has led to the creation of similar criteria for good agricultural practice adopted in South America, with ChileGAP, Central America with MexicoGAP, Africa with KenyaGAP, Japan with JGAP and most recently in Thailand, with ThaiGAP.

The organisation, which has been going for ten years, is backed by governments, retailers, producers and exporters, and covers over 80,000 producers in 80 countries.

Nigel Garbutt, chairman of EurepGAP, said: “Through the adoption of good agricultural practices subject to regular independent monitoring, committed producers regardless of their scale can compete on an equal footing.”

“The reason for our name change is that it now makes common sense to clarify our far wider role at a time when both producers and retailers are operating on an international level across national boundaries.”

The organisation’s secretary Kristian Moeller added: “By positively aligning ourselves in this way, it allows us to identify and fit more closely and more clearly into the global supply chain.”