The Raghavan Report Safe and quality food: a shared responsibility by Raghavan (‘Ragha’) Sampathkumar The World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16, and unlike many other international days, it is always a special one to me as I see this as an opportunity to remind us several important things. Firstly, contrary to the popular warnings and alarms, I am more optimistic about our ability to feed the growing population now and in future. However, quality and safety of food are as important as producing sufficient quantities of food. This is what I call a shared responsibility and each entity in the food value chain has its role to play and responsibility to fulfil. I recently trained a group of people from different countries in Asia and Africa that are working in the Ministry of Agriculture in their respective countries. The programme aimed at providing them some basic concepts of IPM (Integrated Pest Management) and judicious use of agrochemicals. From what I learnt while observing them and also listening to their viewpoints, overall focus on food safety (including chemical residues) must be improved particularly in the low-income countries of the developing world. Food safety is also an important concern for the other countries that export their agricultural produce to different destinations such as the EU and the US, where food safety standards are rather stringent. For millions of farmers in Asia and Africa, who live on their subsistence farms and struggle to make their ends meet, compliance to the food safety and quality standards would be an enormous task. However, their vicious cycle of poverty can be broken only with sustained efforts and support by all the food chain stakeholders. One of the ways private sector can participate is through exploring pre-competitive partnerships and by joining hands with several civil society organisations for conducting trainings for the farmers on food safety and quality standards and better cultivation methods such as GAP. Governments can contribute to these efforts by ensuring the agricultural extension personnel are trained and capable of further cascading the learning to the farmers. Civil society organisations and agricultural universities can play a greater role by providing common platforms where all the stakeholders discuss, interact and learn from each other’s successes and failures. Thus, ensuring food that reaches the consumers is safe, nutritious and is of good quality is a shared responsibility of all the food value chain stakeholders. One of the major lacunae in most countries of the developing world is that the agricultural education and curriculum is not updated and is far off from the ground realities of today. Because of this, the graduates are not industry-ready despite having the educational qualification. Hence, it is an important area for the governments to look into and do what is necessary to help young students get the necessary skills and knowledge to get employed in the fast growing food industry. And there are more key areas like this where action from all stakeholders are required. I will be discussing those key areas in the subsequent columns. Raghavan Sampathkumar is a food and agribusiness leader with a 360 degree understanding of the complex Geo Political, Environmental, Socio Economic, Techno Commercial and Cultural perspectives of Agri Food value chain. He worked in various subsectors including agro inputs, international trade, biotech, and animal nutrition across Asia-Pacific and currently he is with Compound Livestock Feed Manufactures Association (CLFMA) of India as its Executive Director. He regularly writes for international publications on agri-food trends, food security and sustainability themes. Also, he pens his poems and thoughts in his personal blog - www.asmalltownkid.wordpress.com. 18 | November 2017 - Milling and Grain
Investing in a new double head auger filler
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o fulfill growing demand from the food and nutraceuticals industries, the contract manufacturer and co-packer SternMaid America has installed a modern double-head system to increase the capacity of its can filling line. Including further peripheral plant components, the company has invested some US$300,000 in this capacity extension. The double head auger filler dispenses powders into as many as 50 cans per minute per head. Thus, up to 6,000 cans per hour can be filled with a broad range of powdered products – from instant cocoa to dietary supplements. Changeover for different pack sizes is easy, and the machine is able to fill cans of up to six inches in diameter and three to 10 inches in height. Filling weight depends on the can size and the product’s bulk volume. Can filling and sealing is now fully automated, but there is potential for future investment as packing and palletising is still done by hand. Aside from increasing the capacity of its composite can line, SternMaid America’s investment has delivered additional benefits: the single head auger filler, which is now redundant on this line, can be used for filling items such as screw-capped plastic cans, which enables the company to offer a new type of packaging. Jan Thoele, Executive Vice President of SternMaid America: “Customers expect flexibility and reliable, on-time delivery. Even short deadlines have to be met at the right time and with top quality. If a company’s plant breaks down unexpectedly and a contract manufacturer is asked to take over, production must be able to start very quickly. Not only do these new investments increase our capacities in the copacking sector, they also make us much more flexible. We can now carry out even large orders in a short time.”