Belarus and EU complete three-year food safety programme

Belarus has completed the three-year food safety programme in co-operation with European Union, following delivery of equipment to the Belarusian State Institute of Metrology’s (BelGIM) laboratory.

Launched in 2011, the ‘Support to Quality Infrastructure in Belarus-Food Safety’ programme was aimed at introduction of modern analysis methods complying with the EU requirements, Belarusian News reported.

This €8.5m programme was funded by European Union with more than €3m used for the purchase of laboratory equipments to strengthen technical competency, services provision capacity and management practices of the laboratories in the country.

The three laboratories benefitting from the programme are those operating under BelGIM’s Laboratory for the Testing of Food and Agricultural products, Gosstandar, the Agriculture and Food Ministry, and the Healthcare Ministry.

Belarus state committee for standardisation chairman Viktor Nazarenko was quoted by Belarusian News as saying: "As we increased the capacity of the three laboratories and adopted the best practices of the European Union, we got an opportunity to establish a system of national reference laboratories with the ultimate goal to improve the quality of laboratory control of food products.

"In fact, we are seeking not only to harmonise food safety requirements within the framework of the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union, but also to adopt international, single standards."

The programme was implemented by an international consortium that included companies from Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and the French standardisation association AFNOR was the leading partner of the program, the news report said.

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Image: Belarus currently exports food products that include meat, dairy, confectionery, sugar, brewery and soft drinks productions. Photo: courtesy of Stoonn/ freedigitalphotos.net.