Spices Board joins hands with CII, USFDA for training centre

Kochi: The Spices Board has decided to partner with CII and USFDA to set up a collaborative training centre for food safety and supply chain management. This is to clear apprehension and concern on quality of spices and spices products exported from India.

Inaugurating the collaborative training centre here on Monday, A. Jayathilak, Chairman, Spices Board, said that the centre, the first of its kind in India, is the culmination of the decision taken in the aftermath of the World Spice Congress held in Pune in February this year.

The collaborative training centre for food safety and supply chain management in spices/botanical ingredients is being set up to facilitate capacity building and developing product specific testing procedures in the sector of spices and botanical ingredients.

Spices Board and CII – FACE (Jubilant Bhartia Food and Agriculture Centre of Excellence) is partnering with JIFSAN (The Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition) / USFDA (US Food and Drug Administration) in establishing the centre.

The first phase of the training has commenced in Kochi on Monday being attended by over 60 officials and functionaries from 50 organisations from both the Government and non government sector consisting of processors, trader, exporters, etc.

The phase two for selected deleparticipants attending phase two would be involved in a series of workshop and gates will be held in the US for two weeks. In phase three, training programmes in different regions of India.

Supply chain help
The training centre assumes importance in the context of most of the countries especially the US and EU bringing in stringent legislations regarding the standards of spices imported to respective countries. This will give producing countries like India, an edge over the other competitors on the export front.

The centre would strengthen the supply chain management for both domestic and international trade through providing technical support to organisations through training, information sharing and technical consultancy to organisations selected by the Board, in the upgradation of their manufacturing, processing facilities, quality control assurance system, implementing hygiene and food safety management system, etc.

Various stakeholders in the supply chain will be provided with training, counselling, consultancy, etc to build up their capabilities and enable them to be globally competitive.