The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and the TAFS forum have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to start collaborating on animal health and food safety matters.
GFSI is a not-for-profit association of retail, manufacturing, and food service companies and service providers associated with the food supply chain, which undertakes to share information relevant to the supply chain and review existing good retail practices, through benchmarking food safety schemes against the GSFI criteria.
GFSI and TAFS jointly consider animal health a pre-condition for food safety and security and have hence teamed up to address these issues together, complementing each other's activities. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the respective Presidents of the Boards, Yves Rey for the GFSI and Ulrich Kihm for the TAFS forum, recently. Whereas GFSI is mostly active in the domain of risk management by benchmarking and recognizing food safety schemes, the TAFS forum is focused on risk assessment and risk communication in the field of livestock diseases that are transmissible to humans through food and other pathways.
With the prospect of 9 bio people to feed in 2050 and a particularly strong increase in the demand for animal-based protein (meat, milk, eggs) the efficiency of food production needs to be optimized and losses reduced wherever possible. Animal diseases represent a major source of food losses, besides being a potential hazard to food safety.
The TAFS forum will bring its risk assessment expertise in this field to GFSI. GFSI members, who are encouraged to join the TAFS forum at reduced fees, can take profit from TAFS' 'radar screening' and 'rapid response' activities, along with guidelines for risk communication and risk management. GFSI-recognized food safety schemes may then integrate such guidelines. A complete system of 'issue management' is thus created by the partnership of GFSI and the TAFS forum.
Contact person GFSI:
Claudine Musitelli, Vice President, Ethical Sourcing and Food Safety Initiatives, c.musitelli@theconsumergoodsforum.com
Contact person TAFS forum:
Dr. Ulrich Sperling, Executive Director, ulrich.sperling@tafsforum.org
The TAFS forum is seeking new members. If you are interested, please contact us and describe what you might be able to contribute to the TAFS forum. We look forward to hearing from you.
