About GFSF
- GFSF - Food Safety Asia News & Development
- GFSF serves as an industry platform to help improve food safety in the Asian market. This blog offers the most up-to-date news on Asia's food safety events.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
GFSF Summit 2016
https://foodindustry.asia/gfsf-annual-summit-regulating-and-managing-the-global-supply-chain
Monday, July 18, 2016
Recapping The 2016 GFSF Annual Summit
Food Online
Guest Column | July 14, 2016
Recapping The 2016 GFSF Annual Summit
By Rick Gilmore, chairman, Global Food Safety Forum
This year’s Global Food Safety Forum (GFSF) summit was special in many respects, not the least of which was the site itself. The Yanqi Lake Convention and Exhibition Center is the official Asia-Pacific Economic Cooporation (APEC) convention site, underscoring a central theme of the Summit — the integral link between food safety and international trade. In addition, the scale of the Center was ideal for accommodating record attendance levels.
This year’s presenters were recognized experts from the private and public sectors. These speakers brought new perspectives on critical issues covering regulatory developments, advancements in technology, compliance concerns, problems, and prospects.
Government officials were forthright about the compliance obstacles and foreseeable remedies. Among the most notable on their list were: 1) a lack of uniform enforcement of the Food Safety Law at the provincial government level, 2) auditor training levels, 3) budgetary constraints, and 4) insufficient access to new detection technologies and verification systems.
This year’s Global Food Safety Forum (GFSF) summit was special in many respects, not the least of which was the site itself. The Yanqi Lake Convention and Exhibition Center is the official Asia-Pacific Economic Cooporation (APEC) convention site, underscoring a central theme of the Summit — the integral link between food safety and international trade. In addition, the scale of the Center was ideal for accommodating record attendance levels.
This year’s presenters were recognized experts from the private and public sectors. These speakers brought new perspectives on critical issues covering regulatory developments, advancements in technology, compliance concerns, problems, and prospects.
Government officials were forthright about the compliance obstacles and foreseeable remedies. Among the most notable on their list were: 1) a lack of uniform enforcement of the Food Safety Law at the provincial government level, 2) auditor training levels, 3) budgetary constraints, and 4) insufficient access to new detection technologies and verification systems.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Recapping a successful GFSF 2016 on Foodonline
http://www.foodonline.com/doc/recapping-the-gfsf-annual-summit-0001
http://www.foodonline.com/doc/recapping-the-gfsf-annual-summit-0001
Recapping The 2016 GFSF Annual Summit
By Rick Gilmore, chairman, Global Food Safety Forum
This year’s Global Food Safety Forum (GFSF) summit was special in many respects, not the least of which was the site itself. The Yanqi Lake Convention and Exhibition Center is the official Asia-Pacific Economic Cooporation (APEC) convention site, underscoring a central theme of the Summit — the integral link between food safety and international trade. In addition, the scale of the Center was ideal for accommodating record attendance levels.
This year’s presenters were recognized experts from the private and public sectors. These speakers brought new perspectives on critical issues covering regulatory developments, advancements in technology, compliance concerns, problems, and prospects.
Government officials were forthright about the compliance obstacles and foreseeable remedies. Among the most notable on their list were: 1) a lack of uniform enforcement of the Food Safety Law at the provincial government level, 2) auditor training levels, 3) budgetary constraints, and 4) insufficient access to new detection technologies and verification systems.
The Chairman of Tootoo Organic Farm — a leading domestic e-platform and distributor for organic products —pointed to the growing recognition of Chinese consumers of the importance of safe, quality food. She has grown the company into a market mover of organic product nationwide.
The Chairman of LeLaoGen addressed the importance of sustainable agriculture to a dependable food safety system. As an organic pig producer, he described the company’s operating system and noted that they do not use GMO maize in their feed. The President of TUV, China — a global testing, certification, inspection, and food safety training provider — discussed the growing recognition by China industry of international standards, but the continued lack of the application of these standards into operating systems other than for “top level” companies.
The Vice Chairman of China Agricultural Technology Extension Association applauded the official China trade and investment policy of “one belt/one road.” In his view, the policy optimizes resource allocation as well as incentivizing agricultural modernization, integration, and consolidation. The policy, in his estimation, is a pathway to embed food safety, production technology, and agricultural services within an expanded supply chain. The presenter from SCIEX — a global leader in mass spectrometers — unveiled new advances in lab verification technologies. The CCO of ICS/Australia outlined the workings of Management Information System (MIS) software systems for integrated tracking of the food safety footprint from farm to fork.
Another industry presenter discussed the use of blockchain in certifying food safety product in China. And the President of BRIC Global Agricultural Consultants, an official host of the Summit, discussed the growth, food safety benefits, and opportunities for e-produce sales in China.
The World Bank representative discussed Global Food Safety Program (GFSP) initiatives in China and their focus on incubator activities targeting medium-size enterprises. The U.S. presenter from the FDA outlined new regulatory procedures for the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP) and China provincial regulatory agency representatives discussed new enforcement procedures of the amended China Food Safety Law.
The panel discussions, which included Tootoo, TUV, the marketing director from the Ministry of Agriculture/Gansu Province, and GIC Group presenters, fleshed out many of the issues in the presentations of the first day. Moderators also drew attention to the commercial consequences of food safety threats, such as cargo rejections at international ports and dilution of asset value in brands undermined by flawed inspection and verification.
After the second day, hosted by Tootoo, a GFSF member delegation visited cooperative farms, wineries, an integrated large scale swine production and slaughtering facility, and e-platforms in Yang Tai. The group also had an opportunity to meet with 30 business representatives and the local technical director of CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration)/ Shandong Province in a frank and open discussion of local food safety issues.
The fifth annual GFSF Summit offered participants the opportunity to openly discuss their priorities and particular issues of concern. Regulators and policy makers also hosted a unique series of site visits, enabling delegation members to move from a “top-down” discussion of the broad macro set of food safety issues to operating systems and concerns at the production, processing, and distribution levels in a productive agricultural region of the country.
There were many takeaways from the series of events. The conclusions drew a picture of salutary accomplishments and potential future threats which highlight the importance of GFSF as a private-public platform for information sharing and the joint development of new risk mitigation strategies for domestic and international supply chains.
Clearly, there is a lot to be watchful for in the year ahead. In the coming year, GFSF will be offering e-food safety courses in Chinese in collaboration with the University of Maryland/ JIFSAN (Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition), continuing our partnership with the World Bank’s GFSP, and promoting food safety liability insurance for members and non-members.
See you at next year’s Summit.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
FIA published an article from FOCUS: Confusion over Implementation of New Food Safety Law at Provincial Level in China
Confusion over Implementation of New Food Safety Law at Provincial Level in China
Confusion over Implementation of New Food Safety Law at Provincial Level in China
It has been almost a year since the implementation of China’s new Food Safety Law. The law is said to be the “strictest law” in history, aimed at improving China’s food safety problems and restoring public confidence in local food producers and suppliers.
While China has made very impressive advances in food safety regulations, it continues to be criticised for the lack of uniformity in implementing laws at the provincial level. To be more specific, because there is no uniform and connected tracing system for food in the marketplace and no way to share food safety information across provinces, local governments have a variety of standards for food quality despite adhering to the same central food safety law. Such irregular standards prevent local authorities from enforcing the new Food Safety Law.
Firstly, provinces in China usually use separate tracing systems to detect food quality and regulate accordingly. It is mentioned in article 50 of the new Food Safety Law that “food producers and traders should build the food security tracing system according to the law to make sure the food is traceable. It is encouraged that food producers and traders would adopt means of informational gathering, and retain production and trade information to establish the food security tracing system.”
While China has been actively encouraging the establishment of a food security tracing system, there is no uniform tracing system for all provinces as yet. Zuqiang Yan, director of the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration, says that Shanghai is building a food security tracing system, and almost one third of Shanghai companies have uploaded their tracing information to that platform. Moreover, on June 16, 2016, the province of Hubei announced its Management of the Food Security Tracing System, suggesting that a tracing system is necessary in order to strengthen food security management.
Although many provinces had issued regulations or notices that pointed out the importance of building a complete and uniform tracing system, there are still 16 provinces that have not established their own tracing systems. It has been suggested by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) that even though many institutional reforms and integrations are already in place, 50 per cent of the inspection agencies in CFDA have not received training certification. With such uneven development of tracing systems in the provinces, information sharing and connection of standards cannot be achieved.
Secondly, there are no standardised regional regulations that can guarantee that each province and city effectively applies the new Food Safety Law. For example, on May 18, 2016, the press reported that the Qian’an city’s Market Supervisory Authority (MSA) had blocked products from China’s WH Group, China’s biggest meat company, from entering the city’s meat market. It is claimed by WH Group that the MSA misinterpreted Chinese law and contravened national anti-monopoly laws; the national CFDA, rather than the MSA, has the primary responsibility to close access to meat supplies in local markets. WH Group raised the question of discriminatory application of the food safety regulation to favour local companies over companies with a national scope.
There are various instances of applying diverse standards to food safety issues at provincial levels. Shandong Province, for instance, requires that all imported foods have sanitary certificates, certificates of origin, and qualified Chinese labels and instructions according to the new Food Safety Law. In addition, a series of more detailed regulations is also in place in Shandong province. For example, the content of Chinese labels should be no less than the content of foreign labels on the original packages, the size of Chinese characters should be no smaller than that of foreign characters, and the goods should be labelled before they are imported into China. However, in Xizang, another province in China, looser requirements are applied relative to Shandong province. There is no strict rule restricting the size and content of labels. The unsynchronized inspection system throughout China at provincial levels can cause much trouble for each province and consumer.
Thirdly, the enforcement of the new Food Safety Law in each province can be irregular due to the different provincial economic and agricultural laws. In other words, every province might not execute the instruction from a central level effectively, due to constraints from other laws. For example, it is stated in the new Food Safety Law that if producers don’t have their license and production permit or their products exceed the allowable shelf life, the producer will have to pay at least 50,000 Yuan in fines. After the introduction of the new Food Safety Law at a central level, only five provinces – Jiangsu, Guangdong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi – carried out the regulations at the provincial level appropriately. The reason for such a weak response to the law in many provinces, like Sichuan, is that they usually have the local SME protection laws.
The SME protection laws can include providing subsidies, providing credit for loans, and giving technical support to start-ups and small businesses. As SMEs are the majority of businesses in those provinces and are heavily reliant on by the government for their tax and employment issues, it is a tough decision for a provincial government to maintain a balance between the conflicting interests.
Furthermore, some SMEs have less than 50,000 Yuan of property in total, which means they would be bankrupt after paying the fine. This makes it still harder for provinces to carry out effective enforcement.
According to the different situations in each province, there will be diverse obstacles to enforcing the law, which leads to a lack of uniformity of regulation and enforcement at a provincial level. And it is the lack of conformity in enforcement of the new Food Safety Law that could delay and even impede reform of China’s food safety issues.
Therefore, as Professor Zhu Yi, from the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at China Agriculture University, said, “There are problems during the process of implementation; for instance, the lack of a supporting system in provincial levels. The new Food Safety law is a preliminary framework. If there is no specified rule, it is difficult to operate and control the enforcement process.” In other words, without uniform implementation of laws at the provincial level, it will be hard to improve the current food safety situation in China.
While China has made very impressive advances in food safety regulations, it continues to be criticised for the lack of uniformity in implementing laws at the provincial level. To be more specific, because there is no uniform and connected tracing system for food in the marketplace and no way to share food safety information across provinces, local governments have a variety of standards for food quality despite adhering to the same central food safety law. Such irregular standards prevent local authorities from enforcing the new Food Safety Law.
Firstly, provinces in China usually use separate tracing systems to detect food quality and regulate accordingly. It is mentioned in article 50 of the new Food Safety Law that “food producers and traders should build the food security tracing system according to the law to make sure the food is traceable. It is encouraged that food producers and traders would adopt means of informational gathering, and retain production and trade information to establish the food security tracing system.”
While China has been actively encouraging the establishment of a food security tracing system, there is no uniform tracing system for all provinces as yet. Zuqiang Yan, director of the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration, says that Shanghai is building a food security tracing system, and almost one third of Shanghai companies have uploaded their tracing information to that platform. Moreover, on June 16, 2016, the province of Hubei announced its Management of the Food Security Tracing System, suggesting that a tracing system is necessary in order to strengthen food security management.
Although many provinces had issued regulations or notices that pointed out the importance of building a complete and uniform tracing system, there are still 16 provinces that have not established their own tracing systems. It has been suggested by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) that even though many institutional reforms and integrations are already in place, 50 per cent of the inspection agencies in CFDA have not received training certification. With such uneven development of tracing systems in the provinces, information sharing and connection of standards cannot be achieved.
Secondly, there are no standardised regional regulations that can guarantee that each province and city effectively applies the new Food Safety Law. For example, on May 18, 2016, the press reported that the Qian’an city’s Market Supervisory Authority (MSA) had blocked products from China’s WH Group, China’s biggest meat company, from entering the city’s meat market. It is claimed by WH Group that the MSA misinterpreted Chinese law and contravened national anti-monopoly laws; the national CFDA, rather than the MSA, has the primary responsibility to close access to meat supplies in local markets. WH Group raised the question of discriminatory application of the food safety regulation to favour local companies over companies with a national scope.
There are various instances of applying diverse standards to food safety issues at provincial levels. Shandong Province, for instance, requires that all imported foods have sanitary certificates, certificates of origin, and qualified Chinese labels and instructions according to the new Food Safety Law. In addition, a series of more detailed regulations is also in place in Shandong province. For example, the content of Chinese labels should be no less than the content of foreign labels on the original packages, the size of Chinese characters should be no smaller than that of foreign characters, and the goods should be labelled before they are imported into China. However, in Xizang, another province in China, looser requirements are applied relative to Shandong province. There is no strict rule restricting the size and content of labels. The unsynchronized inspection system throughout China at provincial levels can cause much trouble for each province and consumer.
Thirdly, the enforcement of the new Food Safety Law in each province can be irregular due to the different provincial economic and agricultural laws. In other words, every province might not execute the instruction from a central level effectively, due to constraints from other laws. For example, it is stated in the new Food Safety Law that if producers don’t have their license and production permit or their products exceed the allowable shelf life, the producer will have to pay at least 50,000 Yuan in fines. After the introduction of the new Food Safety Law at a central level, only five provinces – Jiangsu, Guangdong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, and Shanxi – carried out the regulations at the provincial level appropriately. The reason for such a weak response to the law in many provinces, like Sichuan, is that they usually have the local SME protection laws.
The SME protection laws can include providing subsidies, providing credit for loans, and giving technical support to start-ups and small businesses. As SMEs are the majority of businesses in those provinces and are heavily reliant on by the government for their tax and employment issues, it is a tough decision for a provincial government to maintain a balance between the conflicting interests.
Furthermore, some SMEs have less than 50,000 Yuan of property in total, which means they would be bankrupt after paying the fine. This makes it still harder for provinces to carry out effective enforcement.
According to the different situations in each province, there will be diverse obstacles to enforcing the law, which leads to a lack of uniformity of regulation and enforcement at a provincial level. And it is the lack of conformity in enforcement of the new Food Safety Law that could delay and even impede reform of China’s food safety issues.
Therefore, as Professor Zhu Yi, from the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering at China Agriculture University, said, “There are problems during the process of implementation; for instance, the lack of a supporting system in provincial levels. The new Food Safety law is a preliminary framework. If there is no specified rule, it is difficult to operate and control the enforcement process.” In other words, without uniform implementation of laws at the provincial level, it will be hard to improve the current food safety situation in China.
Monday, July 11, 2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)