26 attend food safety workshop in Accra

A THREE-DAY capacity training programme to ensure food safety in the hospitality industry began in Accra on Friday as part of preparations towards the upcoming World Tourism Day to be hosted by Ghana.
The programme, which is being organised by the African Management Services Company (AMSCO) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ghana Tourist Board (GTB), and International Finance Corporation, is expected to address issues of food safety in the hotel and food processing industry.
Twenty-six participants from Ghana and Nigeria are attending the programme.
Addressing the opening session, the Deputy Executive Director of the GTB, Mr Edwin Owusu-Mensah, said the growth rate of the tourism sector called for adequate measures to ensure that the industry met international standards.
He said a food safety audit conducted by the GTB and the Food and Drugs Board in some selected hotels and food processing joints showed that the standards of food safety in the hospitality industry had fallen. He, therefore, commended AMSCO and other partners for the training programme and called for its extension to other areas of the country.
The President of the World Food Safety Organisation, Mr Guy Kurkjian, who is in the country to lend his support to the training programme, said: “The training has become necessary as a result of the many issues of food safety challenges players in the industry were facing.”
He charged the participants to take the training seriously in order to be able to design appropriate food safety programmes for their respective jobs and to improve standards in the industry.
The interim Regional Manager of AMSCO, Mr A.S. Mani, said in order to achieve the needed impact of the training, AMSCO had established the baseline of a number of participating hotels and intended tracking the impact of the intervention later.
Mr Mani stressed that food safety management system HACCP/ISO 22000 was the cornerstone of safety to ensure food safety along the food chain.
He urged the participants to use the opportunity to share experience with one another in order to improve service delivery in their respective countries and hotels.