Safety and quality in a globalized feed to food chain

By Dr. Dieter Greissinger

Free global trade is regarded as a key element of economic wealth. We can have access to new markets and globally source new raw materials and products. But we can as well face or create new risks. Any event that is taking place at a certain place in the world may be of impact anywhere else in the world. Thus, one of the advantages of globalization, the facilitated spreading and exchange of improvements in technology, quality and safety may increase the efforts to meet quality and safety standards. Only those companies will benefit from globalization, which will match the requirements defined by regulators and holders of standards.

With respect to the feed to food chain, this means that the development of feed safety systems is not only influenced by local feed regulation, by the number of feed and food scandals, but also by increasing international trade. Global trade in the feed sector will continue to concentrate on feed material like corn or soy and on high value ingredients such as feed additives and in the food sector on animal products and preparations thereof. The hazards related to these products include mycotoxins for feed material, salmonella for animal products and heavy metals or dioxins for feed additives. The potential to spread any contamination globally will create food and feed crises of global dimension and initiate a chain reaction of 'crisis - media attention - consumer concern' of much higher dimension than before.

The response of governments is targeted to improve feed safety, but currently not ideal to bring in line safety considerations and unimpeded trade

Developing countries also suffer from these incidents and started to establish regulatory frameworks including measures to ensure feed and food safety. However, when regulations or local quality standards are in an early state of evolution, rules change frequently, teething troubles occur and large deviations or even conflicting requirements compared to other countries may be in force.

On the other hand, a 'one-size-fits-all' approach is not appropriate for the global feed industry as there are various types of processes involved and therefore different technical competencies are needed to propose effective solutions. Further, it is not possible to simply impose standards and expectations of developed countries on lesser developed areas which would only increase costs of food and make it unaffordable for the poor. Export activities of third countries have to be seen differently, since they have to meet the standard of the destination to keep the same level of safety, quality and efforts needed for imported and domestic products.

Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements aim to reduce barriers of trade. So the standards offered to operators should not have a pure regional focus but should support those trade agreements by increasing the competitiveness through a common international understanding of those quality levels that are needed and requested. The benefit of globally harmonized standards, and eventually globally harmonized feed regulation, is clear: as real guidance for operators they provide reliability, trouble free access to markets and high reputation. Only internationally accepted standards contribute to sharing innovation and best practices worldwide, which is an effective way to manage global risks and build trust in the global feed to food chain.

The next decades task, to feed 9 billion people in 2050, demands far-reaching ideas and solutions that probably generate new challenges for feed and food quality

Consumers need trust to benefit from a global range of goods and opportunities, but the significance of quality attributes has shifted over the time from e.g. nutritional and technical quality to safety. Now, climate change, ethical concerns and animal welfare as well as taste and affordability are the focus of consumers and stakeholders in developed countries. Additional current concerns relate to all aspects of sustainability and the environmental impact of livestock production. For a considerable part of the population in less developed countries, the main concern is however still food security. And this is a topic gaining much more relevance in the future. Responding to the population growth, new nutritional concepts are needed to meet the demand of food for 9 billion people in 2050 and this has to be achieved without jeopardizing feed and food safety. We will need an intensification of the food production, efficient processing and distribution, and we will see new technologies and ingredients for example by-products of various industries or new plant varieties. However, these new developments also carry sufficient risk for new potential hazards and potential safety problems.

The whole feed to food chain must take its accountability serious and to give first priority to the next generations' problems

With respect to the existing and still growing complexity of the international feed to food chain and of the corresponding distribution channels, it is wise to establish regulatory measures and safety systems that do not only rely on testing and control. Modern and effective systems are not product- but process-oriented and targeted to control hazards and prevent contamination from the very beginning. The move from simple testing final products to efficient process control needs a scientifically based approach, competencies regarding industry and regulatory procedures and continuing cooperation of qualified partners to create common and global understanding and guidelines.

For the regulators and operators within the chain, it is easier to fulfill quality and safety requirements with close communication. The industry usually responds fast to challenges and there will be a tendency for vertical integration, long-term contracts and less spot market transaction as can already be observed for the meat market and for retailers. Authorities and legislators - as well as to a certain extent associations - are usually not so fast due to their inherent system of consensus finding. However, harmonization is requested on this level as well. The activities and proposals of the WTO and the Codex Alimentarius Commission provide a solid basis for the alignment of feed regulation and feed safety systems.

There must be an environment that allows for operators to act under predictable, reliable and globally equivalent conditions to manage the increasing tasks of supplying food.

It is important to adopt feed and food regulations to local conditions, but it will be more important in future to enable a free international food supply chain to secure not only feed and food safety but also global food security.

We at Evonik Degussa accept the accountability, apply strict procedures in the same way all over the world from sourcing of raw material to international distribution and recognize that quality and trust are important factors for customers to assess a supplier for feed additives. Our concept of preventive action is that of an Integrated Management System that includes ISO 9001 as a management system basis, ISO 14001 to cover environmental questions, FAMI-QS to meet feed safety and regulatory needs, ISO 14040 to respond to growing interest in life cycle assessment and a further set of internal rules to meet upcoming ethical and sustainability issues.