Food safety training in Ethiopia

An Ethiopian horticultural company, whose core business is growing, processing and exporting fresh herbs to the EU market applied for support from the PIP for among other things the installation of the BRC quality system in its pack house.
A BRC implementation training was recently organized within this company. The training concerned 9 people from middle management staff, took 13 days and was given by a regional expert trained by PIP.
The objective of the mission was to train, advice and assist the company to develop and install the documentation system required to comply with the requirements of the Global Standard for Food Safety (Formally known as BRC).
The expert first trained the packhouse staff on this standard requirements and implementation and carried out additional training on HACCP.
Once all the trainings were completed, the expert assisted the food safety manager to develop tailor made documentation and record system based on the requirements of the BRC standard and the needs of the company. He also coached the middle management team on the installation of the developed tools, involving translation of some key documents to Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia.

Says Jagdish, the Farm Manager: “Before the training there were so many misunderstandings and confusions on interpretation of what is allowed or not in the pack house, but now, thanks to the practical training, we got it all clear. We are confident to prepare for the audit.”