EAS Holds March Food Safety Seminar

SINGAPOREEAS will clarify key regulatory opportunities and challenges when exporting food products internationally in a seminar on food safety rules and regulations in the international arena, including the European Union and Codex Alimentarius, the global food arm of the WHO/FAO.  The three-hour seminar, titled Food Safety Culture: Overcoming challenges in Europe and international markets," will take place at the Singapore Polytechnic on Tuesday, March 8.

EAS Food Law Manager Xavier Lavigne will lead the workshop, and will clarify the legal text of the European Unions food safety regulation, show how the food standards of Codex Alimentarius impact on regulations across the globe, and highlight the key players shaping future regulation and regulatory trends in food safety.

Lavigne said that the EUs continued strengthening of its food safety regulation and the United States recent adoption of a new Act on food safety, shows a trend toward heightened food safety awareness globally, whereas in the past the nutritional area of food law had taken the leading role.

The EU, for example, has been further harmonizing rules on additives, enzymes and flavors, and is continuously revising the EU-harmonized authorized contaminants and pesticides levels," Lavigne said. With the United States new Act on food safety, one can see two different philosophies and legal frameworks toward the same goal. This will ultimately strengthen the trend toward food safety at global and Codex Alimentarius level."

He added: The changes triggered in Codex are important. As the WHO/FAO international monitoring body, its Standards and Guidelines have a significant impact on the 183 countries in the global arena that make up its membership. The Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems, for example, is currently developing Guidelines on national food control systems. This discussion is still at an early stage, but developments in the EU, US and the Association of South East Asian Nations will certainly speed up the rate at which it moves along."