New body to examine SA's food safety

"Food Safety South Africa is being set up within the CGCSA's Legal and Regulatory environment to assist the industry with safety matters of concern to the industry, to consumers and other stakeholders," explains Broughton.

The move has been considered necessary in the light of recent global trends which have impacted on general public health: "Changes in weather patterns, globalisation and the consequent movement of both populations and products have given rise to problems within the food chain. This has led to such incidents as the outbreak of avian flu and the increased use of the illegal additive Sudan Red in food products.

"At CGCSA we believed that although South Africa has always enjoyed remarkably high safety standards, it was time to meet as an industry to agree on common objectives to ensure that we provided adequate food safety along the entire supply chain."

Food Safety South Africa (FSSA) will focus on a number of areas, including risk management, scientific issues, such as a virtual laboratory, and standards: "There will be a special emphasis on risk management, since it is essential that we have a comprehensive grasp of the risks involved at each stage of the food supply, chain from farm to fork. Consumers too, need to be aware of risks so that they can make informed decisions at their points of purchase."

The CGCSA website will be kept updated with information on the formation of the FSSA. Currently, discussions are taking place with all interested parties and a succession of meetings are being held, heading towards the formal launch of the FSSA scheduled for 17 November at the Food Safety Conference in Johannesburg.

Main Board co- sponsors with the CGCSA are Simon Susman of Woolworths and Kees Kruythoff of Unilever SA Foods.