“One year after the establishment of the National Food Safety Authority, Are the Markets ready for the food safety law?”

This forum is the first forum organized this year by the committee of food and beverages at the Canada Egypt business council, to identify the developments of the national food safety authority which was established in 2017, and the many tasks entrusted to it; as well as presenting the vision of the authority on the rules of binding for food safety. Also, how to verify the availability of health requirements & standards specifications binding in all trading process , periodic inspection and the control on food circulation ; in a way that achieves the objectives of this authority of which it has initially been established for , which are simply to guarantee the right of the Egyptian citizens to obtain clean and healthy food , to improve the quality of Egyptian food products & to work to increase their competitiveness , as well as to increase the internal and external investment rates in this vital and important sector.

In this context, Canada Egypt Business Council and Egyptian Business Council for International Cooperation organized a committee with DR. Hussein Mansour, Chairman of the National Food Safety Authority, to discuss the National Food Safety Authority role and achievements.

In the opening remarks Eng. Motaz Raslan welcomed all members and guests, then he discussed that the National Food Safety Authority aims to protect the Egyptian citizens from polluted food and protect their health. The National Food Safety Authority was established since 2017 and its role is to guarantee for citizens to obtain healthy food and improve the quality of the Egyptian food products.

Mr. Tamer Mosalam discussed that as a business community, we are concerned by the most important topics as consumer protection law which was established in 2017 & in 2018 the food protection law as well as the establishment of the National Food Safety Authority, under the leadership of Dr. Hussein Mansour, who was going to explain all roles of the authority and how to support it to serve the community.

Dr. Hussein Mansour, head of the Food Safety Authority explained that there will be random visits to the premises accredited by the commission that supplies school food to review their products and conform to the specifications. He added that the number of rules binding for food in Egypt that is issued by the authority does not exceed 50 bases, including 25 to 27 vertical bases for meat, dairy and special foods products; pointing out that there are another 23 horizontal bases, including the specifications for the factories in general.

He added that before the establishment of the Standards and Quality Authority in 1957, the food specifications were not mandatory, but in the 1990s some of these specifications became mandatory. Also, the food standards in all countries in the world in general are not mandate, clarifying that with the issuance of any mandatory rule for a particular product, it cancels any specifications based on it, and is scheduled to be published in the official facts and serve as a constitution between the state and the citizen.

He pointed out that there will be an inspector trained to obtain samples of food from the factories, in addition to the authority contracted with a number of laboratories to examine these samples, noting that the evaluation has been conducted for those laboratories and it was included in the contract with them to send samples with known results in advance to confirm the validity of their work; pointing out that the Authority gives an opportunity to the factories of the possibility of sending samples to more than one laboratory to ascertain the outcome.

Dr. Hussein Mansour called for the need to solve the problems of the Egyptian exports related to the rules of international food safety, in order to comply with the specifications of international food safety. Also the Egyptian exports to Saudi Arabia face many risks because of the Kingdom’s application of the rules of food safety in the US, pointing out that Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of Egyptian agricultural exports.

The floor was then opened for questions and answers session, where several ideas and suggestions were raised including the market readiness of the food safety law to preserve the reputation of Egyptian exports in international markets, especially agricultural exports and food products.