LUSAKA, Zambia, Apr 12 (IPS) – Monica Musonda, CEO, Java Meals, and Board Member, Companions in Meals Options (PFS)Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has restricted worldwide exports and despatched meals prices hovering – notably for weak populations nonetheless experiencing shocks from the pandemic and who can least afford to pay extra to feed their households. Two years on, world meals provide chains are nonetheless simply as vulnerable to critical disruptions attributable to warfare, illness, and local weather change. These inevitable disruptions are leaving these on the African continent notably weak.
Making certain individuals have entry to secure and nutritious meals at an reasonably priced worth helps forestall malnutrition, boosts human capital, and improves well being outcomes by lowering susceptibility to a variety of illnesses. However none of that is potential if the native meals provide isn’t secure for individuals to eat. Meals safety and meals security should go hand in hand, but throughout Africa this stays a problem. The continent has some of the highest rates of foodborne illness on this planet. Globally, almost half 1,000,000 individuals die annually due to one thing they ate.
Meals scares are usually not solely dangerous for anybody who eats contaminated meals, but additionally erodes belief of shoppers within the merchandise they purchase for his or her households. To make sure a safe meals provide, domestically produced meals should not solely be available but additionally be secure for shoppers to eat, assembly the identical high-quality requirements seen in imports.
However small and medium-sized corporations in Africa battle to satisfy worldwide meals security requirements, which frequently go above what’s required on a nationwide stage. The method might be difficult, costly, and time consuming, but I consider it’s important for African meals corporations to hunt these certifications to construct client confidence and strengthen continental meals safety.
I began Java Meals, a meals firm primarily based in Lusaka, Zambia, out of the popularity that Africa imports massive portions of meals, even though the continent is ready to develop a variety of crops. Our firm focuses on utilizing domestically grown uncooked supplies in our merchandise, which we’ve designed particularly for the altering tastes of the youthful Zambian inhabitants.
One among our most profitable merchandise are packaged instantaneous noodles, beneath the model title eeZee, that are made with domestically grown wheat fortified with 17 micronutrients, together with iron and zinc. Though we produce processed meals, we wish to guarantee the very best dietary worth potential for our shoppers who search accessible and reasonably priced meals choices.
Sustaining high-quality meals security requirements is the best factor to do for the buyer, and it has been the best factor to do for Java Meals – even when it has required important investments in our facility and in our individuals.
Meals security certification needs to be paid for. The totally different units of requirements are run by non-public corporations, which require meals producers to purchase the certification they wish to implement and renew the certification each couple of years. Audits to make sure compliance are additionally pricey.
With technical help from Companions in Meals Options, a nonprofit which hyperlinks African meals producers with company volunteers from U.S.-based meals corporations, Java Meals was capable of obtain help in redesigning our plant to make sure we’ll be compliant with worldwide meals security requirements. Our workers benefited from abilities switch utilizing on-line conferencing instruments that dramatically elevated their skilled abilities and contributions to our crew.
Along with making modifications to our manufacturing facility flooring plan, we additionally started a meticulous documentation course of to create the data essential to show that we have been following the identical requirements to a T on each single batch of instantaneous noodles. Our workers are central to getting this proper, so Java Meals has created a tradition the place our workers perceive why we take these further steps, and take delight in guaranteeing our compliance.
It’s potential for different corporations to comply with in Java’s footsteps. There are a number of methods we are able to enhance the meals security certification system to mutually profit shoppers, meals processors, and regulating authorities.
Along with higher consciousness of the existence of meals security requirements and why corporations ought to search such certification to learn their shoppers, there must be extra coordination on a regional and world stage. Java Meals exports our merchandise to neighboring nations, however every can require totally different steps to adjust to their native laws. Exporting our noodles to Zimbabwe, for instance, requires us to finish an additional step not required elsewhere.
This implies we shoulder further bills to broaden our market, which can’t be handed alongside to the buyer as a result of we make a low-cost product. Differing meals security requirements turn out to be a commerce barrier not solely proscribing the expansion of companies in Africa, however proscribing meals safety as strengthening regional provide chains stays hampered by cumbersome laws.
Native governments want extra help to strengthen their meals security high quality management capability. This consists of the services they supply for testing for meals contaminants corresponding to aflatoxins, from a mildew that may develop on some crops after they aren’t saved correctly.
We additionally want higher info sharing and information availability. Having info available on-line when our workers encounter a difficulty would save time and assets.
Though it was laborious, Java Meals has immensely benefited from the choice to hunt worldwide meals security certification. The requirements permit us to broaden the marketplace for our merchandise, and we should guarantee different corporations can simply be part of us to strengthen Africa’s meals safety.
Monica Musonda is the CEO of Java Meals, a meals manufacturing firm in Lusaka, Zambia. She serves on the board of Companions in Meals Options, a nonprofit group that gives professional bono consulting companies to African meals processors.
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