Food businesses are responsible for ensuring food safety and complying with regulatory requirements. To help manage safety and reduce risks in their supply chains, they often use quality assurance systems, such as voluntary third-party assurance (vTPA) programmes. Government authorities can use information from vTPA programmes to support their own inspections and controls, as long as the information is reliable and suitable for their needs. The Codex Principles and Guidelines for the assessment and use of vTPA programmes provide a framework for assessing the integrity and credibility of vTPA programmes.
Overview
Approach
To facilitate this public-private collaboration, it is essential that the information provided by vTPA programs is both reliable and accessible to regulatory authorities. By integrating this data, authorities can enhance their risk-based approach to food safety management.
can be useful to the relevant regulatory authorities on the base of a collaboration between the government and the vTPA owners
This enables the authorities to target inspections according to the risk posed by food businesses and to direct the resources of their national food control systems more effectively
Impact
The project aims to enhance the efficiency of food safety oversight by prioritizing high-risk production sites and food business operators, allowing for a better risk profiling of sectors. Through smarter, data-driven prioritization of official resources, regulatory authorities can more effectively target inspections and controls. Additionally, food business operators (FBOs) that participate in robust vTPA programs may benefit from a reduced frequency or intensity of regulatory controls, as their lower risk status is recognized within a risk-based framework.
SDGs:
UNIDO Priorities:
Thematic Area(s):
This will allow control bodies, such as the DPV (Plant Protection Department in Senegal), to have less work, as nowadays the DPV cannot be behind every actor on a daily basis. If people implement a voluntary food safety management system to do things the right way, the control body will be more relieved and will do its job better, and everybody wins.
Mr. Cheikh Ngane
President of the Senegalese Horticulturists' Federative Cooperative
Technology Used
vTPA tools developed by UNIDO, which include the vTPA assessment tool (used to capacitate regulators on the practical application of the Codex Principles and Guidelines for the assessment and use of vTPA), and the vTPA Readiness Check (used to help competent authorities rapidly assess their readiness to integrate the vTPA approach).
Catalytic Outlook
Improved food safety compliance of FBOs in selected value chains based on the use of a voluntary food safety capacity building programme to protect public health and improve trade.
Unique Solution Characteristics
vTPA programmes are seen as a unique tool to help improve the effectiveness of competent authority oversight through a co-regulatory setup.
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vTPA tools:
- Model food safety scheme
- vTPA assessment tool
- vTPA Readiness check
