From February 29 to March 3, 2016, the 15th Global Food Safety Conference (GFSC)hosted by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) took place in Berlin, Germany. The theme for this year was “The Global Food Safety Vision: Making the Change”.The 1,000 food industry experts from around the world discussed topics including big data, crisis management, global trading standard and the future of food safety.
COFCO Vice President &member of the Leading Party Members’ Group Wan Zaotian attended the conference and exchanged views with other attendees on how to help food enterprises of developing countries guarantee food safety. During the conference, GFSI board presented this year’s only award for outstanding contribution to Mr. Wan Zaotian in recognition of COFCO’s outstanding contributions such as projecting a brand-new image of China’s food enterprises to the world and developing world advanced food safety concepts in China while serving as GFSI board member, especially its unremitting efforts to promote mutual recognition of China’s Hazard analysis and critical control points(HACCP) certification and GFSI certification standards.
Established in 2000, the GFSI is an independent non-profit international organization comprised of the world leading supply chain providers including over 600 food production enterprises, retailers and catering businesses from over 70 countries. The total trading volume of its member enterprises accounts for approximate 65% of the total global food trading volume. Its main goal is: “once certified, accepted everywhere” so as to achieve the global convergence of different food safety standards and boost the cost-efficiency of food supply chain.
Since COFCO became the only board member of the GFSI among China’s food production enterprises in 2011, COFCO has been actively participating in international exchanges over the past four yearsto make use of experiences of its benchmarks, improve its management standard and drive the concerted growth of its upstream and downstream value chain.
Through COFCO’s active advocacy, Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China signed agreement with the GFSI in November 2015, signaling the GFSI’s formal recognition of China’s HACCP certification system. In the future, any food enterprise with China’s HACCP certification can be exempt from verification by purchasers or foreign certification when entering the supply chain of GFSI member enterprises so as to lower trading costs and enhance its brand reputation in the international market. Before the signing of this agreement, the GFSI had recognized ten food safety certifications including Germany’s International Food Standard (IFS), Britain’s BRC (British Retail Consortium) food safety standard and the US SQF (Safe Quality Food) 1000/2000 certification. China’s HACCP certification is developing countries’ as well as Asia’s first food safety certification recognized by the GFSI. It is also the world’s first GFSI-recognized government standard.
