T-303A-19
GFSI: “Once Certified, Accepted Everywhere”: How Quebec Did It!
GFSI: “Once Certified, Accepted Everywhere”: How Quebec Did It!
Tuesday, August 19, 2014: 4:40 PM
303A (Centre des congrès de Québec // Québec City Convention Centre)
Back in 2000, food safety was a key issue for companies due to several high-profile recalls, quarantines and negative publicity about the food industry. Chief executive officers of global companies came together at The Consumer Goods Forum and agreed that consumer trust needed to be strengthened and maintained through a safer food supply chain. The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) was created to achieve this through the harmonization of food safety standards that would reduce audit duplication throughout the supply chain. Once recognized by the GFSI, those standards were adopted by large distributors, who expect their suppliers to conform. Therefore, be it either to export Quebec fish products or to sell them to national distributors, the food industry must follow a GFSI-certified process in order to guaranty product safety and access to markets. This requirement from the distributors is now unavoidable. Within this context, in order to consolidate and increase its market share, Quebec’s Government and the Quebec Fish Processors Association supported the industry to build an effective food safety management system and obtain GFSI certification. This presentation will outline the major steps of this initiative and the challenges Quebec’s plants faced as they adjusted to markets and implemented innovations.