 From supermarket to restaurant, from agricultural product to ready-to-eat food, more and more consumers are taking greater interest in food quality, labelling and contents.
This has led to the development of a food safety culture, involving all operators in the chain, from agriculture to animal feed, from breeding to production, from retailing to catering, all of whom are required to guarantee the ability to offer safe food to consumers.
In line with these needs, EU and national legislation have recently been reorganised, in particular Reg. 178/02, the provisions of the Hygiene Package and legislative decree 193/07, which also deals with a system of sanctions.
Based on responsibility of the operators throughout the chain and defined with a view to prevention, it includes measures such as:
• the adoption of an effective HACCP system, based on the Codex Alimentarius and compliance with the rules of good hygiene practice by all operators
• a traceability system throughout the chain
• immediate recall of batches and communication to the competent authority in the case of food or animal feed considered unsafe
• effective training of operators relevant to the work carried out.
Besides, consumers’ desire for quality is not limited to food safety; they seek quality in terms of certainty of place of origin, genuine ingredients, traditional production methods.
In this light, the agricultural food industry is focused on enhancing the Made in Italy food chains to propose, to national and international markets, an offer characterised by top quality and aimed at enhancing typicality.
The RINA Group offers the food market certification services aimed at food safety and compliance with mandatory requirements as well as at enhancing intrinsic product quality. Moreover, for suppliers of national and international retail stores, specific standards are available such as BRC, IFS, GLOBALGAP.
In particular, for the Italian market, the certification services are provided by Agroqualità S.p.A. which, as well as its consolidated experience in the food sector, also has an extensive range of authorisations in relation to regulated DOP, IGP, STG certification to protect typical marks in a European and international context.
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