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Novelle and Food Safety in Southeast Asia

Food safety has grown to be an element of serious concern in the developing world over the last several years. This has begun to happen for three principal reasons.

First, many countries have begun to export fresh fruits and vegetables to the northern industrialized countries, and in doing so, they now must comply with food safety standards that have been extended to suppliers all over the world. This is true in Latin American countries selling to the U.S. and Canada, of southern Asia countries selling to Japan and other northern Asian countries, and particularly true for African suppliers shipping to the buyers in the EU, which not only have GlobalGap standards, but proprietary standards as well at the level of individual supermarkets.

Second, international supermarket chains have invested heavily in the developing world over the last decade, and this has brought modern food safety standards to local purchasing in a great number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

And third, there is simply the matter of modern communication. When an outbreak of E. coli attacks the American spinach industry and causes many deaths and losses in the hundreds of millions of dollar, that news is widely spread throughout the entire world.

For the last few years, Novelle principal Henry Winogrond, working together with Dr. Marita Cantwell, the head of the postharvest sector of the University of California in Davis, have conducted food safety training sessions in SE Asia, communicating current safety standards to many of the actors in the fruit and vegetable business in local countries.
       
The training was initiated in Indonesia, and has been conducted on two levels. Dr. Cantwell has focused on the technical and scientific aspects of food safety. These include the biological foundations of proper food safety practices, water sanitation, harvesting and maturity indices, and proper cooling and storage practices. Included with the cooling and storage practices is the scientific research that led to the development of the appropriate industry standards. Mr. Winogrond has focused on the managerial and operational aspects of the postharvest processes of food safety, including the appropriate practices in the packing plants that will allow the delivery of modern food safety standards.
       
This training was then extended to Malaysia ( please see Novelle news article, “ Novelle and the World Bank in Malaysia ), where Dr. Cantwell individually assisted the Malaysian Agrifood Corporation in helping the country to move forward in the establishment of current food safety practices and standards.