The formation of the Working Group in 2014, comprising representatives from the dairy industry, dairy sector organisations, government, education organisations and verifiers, resulted from a recommendation from the Whey Protein Concentrate Inquiry in 2013.
The report recommendations include developing voluntary guidelines and training on food safety governance for board directors, establishing a dedicated dairy food safety excellence awards scheme and developing a targeted programme of secondments between MPI and industry to promote strong regulator and industry partnerships and improve capability.
The report also identifies initiatives the Working Group believe will have longer-term impacts. These broadly focus on education and building awareness, and include enhancing the availability, relevance and accessibility of food safety education and training at all levels, promoting the awareness amongst students of careers in food safety and championing a dairy sector leadership mechanism that drives food safety culture.
Martyn Dunne, director-general of the Ministry for Primary Industries, who convened the group has welcomed the report’s release. “It is pleasing that the Working Group’s report has concluded that food safety in the dairy sector in New Zealand is in good shape”
Greg Gent, chair of the Dairy Capability Working Group said “Leadership is key to this culture shift and the Working Group sees the empowerment and training of board directors as critical to achieving this change. Such a culture change will also need to be supported through collaborative partnerships that involve regulators, industry, education organisations, research institutes and consumers.”
Meanwhile, the official media agency of the People’s Republic of China, the Xinhua News Agency has acknowledged the Working Group findings in a story with more context given to the reason for the Group’s inception. Headlined ‘Food safety culture needed for New Zealand dairy industry’, it began with references to Fonterra’s 2013 false botulism scare and global product recall. Food safety Minister Jo Goodhew was also quoted in the article, saying “a future-focused approach to food safety has the end consumer firmly at the centre”.
