Md. Monwarul Islam :
The 9thJune marks World Accreditation Day, a global initiative, jointly established by International AccreditationForum (IAF) and International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), to raise awareness of theimportance of accreditation among stakeholders & beneficiaries. The theme of World Accreditation Day 2020 focuses on the role of accreditation in improving food safety.
Worldwide food sector is largely a regulated sector and the assurance of safety and quality of food supply is traditionally a prerogative of governments through the development of regulations and inspections. Conformity assessment demonstrates compliance with legislative requirements for regulated food and food products.
However, following a number of global food safety incidents during the 1990s, consumer confidence in the capacity of regulators to guarantee food safety has declined in many parts of the world. In response, the private sector has moved to implement more and more specific standards with higher requirements than regulations in order to ensure the quality, safety and traceability of their products and processes. In the voluntary sector, conformity assessment provides assurance to consumers that the food and food products they buy meet specification of safety.
Accreditation is the independent evaluation of various conformity assessment bodies against recognizedstandards for specific activities such as testing, calibration, inspection or certification to ensure their integrity, impartiality and competence. Through the application of national and international standards, government departments, businesses and wider society can therefore have confidence in the testresults, inspection reports and certifications provided.
There are a vast range of ways that accreditation helps improving food safety involvingtesting, calibration, certification and inspection. Food chain management is the key factor for improving food safety. This is a complex network of processes, resources, activities and technologyinvolved in the production and sale of food, from sourcing of raw materials from the supplier to themanufacturer, through to ultimate delivery to the end consumer. To ensurecredibility and reliability in foodchain, accredited testing, inspection and certification to food and food productsare highly required. That is how, the theme of this year “Accreditation: Improving Food Safety” fits well with current need and context of the world scenario.Accreditation offers a range of services that can identify and manage the potential risks of becomingfood unsafe through the assessment of certification, inspection and testing.
The production and distribution of food involves complex food chains and processes. Conformity assessment, including activities such as testing, certification, and inspection, is used to verify that food meet standards or technical specifications and thereby provides a means for preventing unsafe food from entering the market place. Supermarket chains and retailers should demand thattheir suppliers demonstrate that food meet relevant standards by requiring accredited test reports,inspection reports and certifications. Preparing ready -to-eat food and serving those in restaurant, café and food corners need to go through a minimum system of conformity assessment as such.
In the context of Bangladesh, there are 76locally produced and 23 imported food items fall into the regulatory specifications that need mandatory certification from government owned certification agency before release to the market. But this number is not so handsome as compared to the food items available in the market and we consume in our daily living, most of which remain out of mandatory certification. However this agency offers voluntary certification for some food items that still does not suffice entire food market. The newly formed food safety regulator in Bangladesh should work on this issue, so that all food items must come under relevant conformity assessment and certification. To ensure safer and nutritious food and increase the consumer protection, it is necessary to establish a reliable and sustainable food production and food chain management. This is possible through implementation of accredited conformity assessment system for instance, food testing, inspection of food packaging-transport-supply, and certification of food products and their manufacturing processes. Accredited conformity assessment system operated to acceptable standards help build layers of assurance of food safety by ensuring reliability in the entire food supply chain from farm to fork, through food production, processing and packaging, storage and transportation, to retail and catering.
BAB is established to ensure that laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies working in thecountry are subject to oversight by itself. BAB is internationally recognized by its regional and internationalassociations such as Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) (formerly APLAC) and InternationalLaboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) since 2015, which has been evaluated by peers as competent,sign international arrangements that facilitate the acceptance of Bangladeshi products including food across borders after meeting the local demands. The system removes regulatory barriers for local market and arbitrary national technical barriers to food export by improving safety, confidenceand transparency throughout complex food chains.
BAB is very much ready to provide accreditation services to food conformity assessment bodies in the country and feels to contribute actively in improving food safety in Bangladesh.
(The writer is Director General (Additional Secretary) of Bangladesh Accreditation Board (BAB), Ministry of Industries. Email: [email protected])
