Chris Anstey, product integrity manager at Tesco, gave delegates at the CIES Food Business Forum’s Food Safety conference in Paris an update on the work of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).
A six-strong committee was formed to oversee the initiative, comprising representatives of Ahold, Carrefour, Metro, Migros, Tesco and Wal-Mart. A seventh member, Hannaford, has now joined and the group is advised by two major manufacturers, dairy giant Danone and fruit group Dole.
The main activities last year focused on benchmarking, centering on BRC, Dutch HACCP, IFS, and SQF 2000. Concerns were raised around the new ISO 22000 at the 2005 CIES food safety conference, and Anstey explained that the new standard cannot be submitted for benchmarking, but remains in dialogue with GFSI.
More broadly, Anstey emphasised the necessity to move from inter-dependence to a global, more integrated community that shares the same values when it comes down to food safety. A world with fewer borders, he said, means incidents have an impact more quickly, and on more countries than before: “Six years ago the world’s retailers did not collaborate on non-competitive issues like food safety, and now they do,” he added, to highlight the speed of the progress made.
During the same conference, DG-Sanco’s Paola Testori-Coggi said that Europe “can be very proud” of its food safety system. The director general of the European Commission’s directorate for health and consumer affairs said: “Food safety is central [in Europe]. And it is important that imported products are of the same standard as those from Europe. Our exports are also compliant with our regulations.”
Few trading blocs live up to the same standards, claimed Testori-Coggi, who defended the rapid alert system, which has caused some concern. Some have argued that public dissemination of information might be seen as a restraint of trade, but the counter argument was: “Transparency to the citizens of Europe is a price we must pay, even though the system is in itself very good.”
