Editorial
Food safety
System needs to be rebuilt from scratch
The mobile courts continue to bring to book those purveying adulterated and dangerous foods and the issue has come to the forefront of public consciousness. Indeed one down-side of the current drive for food safety is that the food industry has been hit as consumers have responded to the current scare by scaling back their purchases of certain items and eating out less often than before.This market response shows the insufficiencies and limitations of the current measures in place to ensure food safety. The point is not to cause harm to the industry as a whole so that the good suffer along with the bad, but this is the unavoidable result of the haphazard system that is currently in place for ensuring food safety, and is evidence that the consumer is hopelessly confused as to food quality and has no idea how to ensure that the food he or she eats is safe. What is needed is a mechanism whereby people can be ensured of the quality of their food with no ambiguity or uncertainty. At present, every step along the supply chain is subject to corruption. The current system is in a state of total collapse and the public has no way of ensuring whether the food it eats is safe or not. It is clear that the entire regulatory system needs to be overhauled and restructured from top to bottom. The authorities need to go beyond the conventional measures that have proven so ineffective, and devise a workable mechanism so that the consumer is protected and that the food industry can maintain quality control. The first step is a registration and certification programme for every step along the supply chain. This will bring the industry under some kind of discipline. Needless to say, the standards for certification must be rigorously upheld. We would like to see a clear mandate given to a single authority to ensure food safety. Currently the matter falls under the authority of a number of criss-crossing agencies and ministries, to say nothing of local municipalities, and this is one reason for the confusion. In addition, what is needed is fresh thinking on the matter. Let us tap experts in both the public and the private sector to resolve this problem. This is fruitful ground for a public-private partnership approach. Indeed, the entire food industry has seen its reputation tarnished by the scandal, and this should be incentive for it to get involved in self-policing. The private sector need not wait for the government to set up a regulatory regimen. The food industry has everything to gain from setting up its own quality control standards, and ensuring that each member of the industry in good standing maintains them.
| 
