Minsk, Belarus, May 17, 2012
—IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, today is launching a Food Safety Toolkit that will help local food producers in Belarus assess and improve their food safety practices, thereby increasing their competitiveness, sales and exports.
Food safety represents a key operational risk for the food sector and accounts for major economic damages and fatalities in both developing and developed countries. To address the issue, IFC created the Food Safety Toolkit, which provides templates laying out for business managers their duties and responsibilities in producing food that is safe to eat.
The Toolkit also addresses the role of state inspection agencies in ensuring food safety. The IFC Toolkit is intended for companies that do not yet have a food safety management system in place, as well as firms that seek to improve their existing system.
The Toolkit has been adapted to local market conditions and has already been tested in Belarus by Global Vitebsk, a meat production company.
“Piloting the IFC Food Safety Toolkit was a useful and timely exercise for Global Vitebsk,” said Yuriy Gruzdev, the company’s CEO. “It helped our staff understand international food safety requirements and test their application in our facilities.”
Olga Sherbina, Project Manager of IFC’s Food Safety Project in Belarus, said, “IFC works with companies and government agencies in Belarus to promote internationally recognized food safety standards and expand access to markets. The Toolkit that we made available in the local language offers practical solutions to help food producers improve their operations in a cost-effective way.”
IFC’s Food Safety Advisory Project is being implemented in Belarus in partnership with the Austrian Ministry of Finance. In addition to Belarus, IFC is also helping to improve food safety in the Western Balkans, Georgia and Ukraine.
About IFC
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We help developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing investment, providing advisory services to businesses and governments, and mobilizing capital in the international financial markets. In fiscal 2011, amid economic uncertainty across the globe, we helped our clients create jobs, strengthen environmental performance, and contribute to their local communities—all while driving our investments to an all-time high of nearly $19 billion. For more information, visit
www.ifc.org
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