The public sector is increasingly looking at private sector standards and certification body GlobalGAP as an example to be followed.
This was the message from the ninth annual GlobalGAP conference in Cologne last week. Numbers exceeded expectation, with GlobalGAP chairman Nigel Garbutt reporting more than 400 delegates from 44 countries worldwide.
He said: “We had two excellent presentations from the public sector. One was from the US Food & Drug Administration, which is looking very proactively at how it can strengthen its own regulation and learn from the private sector.
“This could be particularly important for fresh produce suppliers to the US market, as with GlobalGAP certification, they could be deemed to be lower risk in terms of food safety.”
And Michael Scanell from the European Commission directorate general for Health & Consumers (Sanco) said in his presentation that he wanted to see a representative from the commission at GlobalGAP conferences every year, such is the importance of the development of private sector standards.
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