Making RP’s meat processing industry globally competitive

The National Government has stepped up its drive to take the Philippine meat processing industry into greater heights and at par with its global counterparts.

This objective has brought to the fore technology systems that are much needed by stakeholders in an industry contributing some P50 billion to the country’s value on gross domestic products and providing employment to some 30,000 people.

"Much more can be realized in terms of export revenues if we put our act together," said National Meat Inspection Commission (NMIC) Executive Director Efren C. Nuestro, pointing out the importance of cooperation between the government and the private stakeholders towards a globally competitive meat processing sector.

Realizing the tenets of the World Trade Organization (WTO) fundamental rules, the government had drawn up a road map to further boost the marketability of meat products in the world market.

Thus, in 2003, the Department of Agriculture issued Administrative Order 9 for the mandatory application of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program in all NMIC-accredited "AAA" meat establishments for the application of HACCP system pursuant to the Codex Alimentarius commission guidelines.

Codex is the reference book for meat quality assurance of the WTO as recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN)..

"It is a reliable reference material of quality assurance by which all WTO-member countries subscribe to," said Nuestro. "It is also the guiding rule by which our auditing team relied on in the implementation of HACCP programs among meat establishments," he said.

HACCP is a preventive and systematic approach designed to protect food supply against hazards to human health. Unlike other food safety systems which are implemented on a company-wide scale like Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Standard Sanitation Operating Procedures (SSOP), HACCP is complied with and implemented on a product basis.

"Different products have different processes, so the HACCP compliant certificates are earned on a per product basis," Nuestro said.

Each certificate is valid for a period of one year and subject to validation audits every six months and surveillance visits for GMP compliance within the validity period of the certificate.

As of last week, about 66 percent of the country’s "AAA" meat processing companies are already HACCP compliant. About 12 companies have already complied with the prescribed international facilities such as laboratory and an efficient cold chain system.

"The system addresses biological, chemical, and physical hazards by anticipating occurrence of such as and food quality is ensured in every step of the manufacturing process," said Nuestro.

Amy D. Cuna, vice president for manufacturing of CDO-Foodsphere, Inc. notes that getting a HACCP-compliant certificate is not an easy job.

"It took us some time to get the certificate even though our GMP and SSOP systems are already in place," she said.

The company was recently awarded with two more HACCP certificates for Pizza Hut meat toppings and Pizza Hut beef toppings. These products are produced by CDO-Foodsphere as ingredients for the end-product of the international food chain.

CDO Bibbo Hotdog! was earlier awarded with the same recognition after being subjected to stringent auditing at the manufacturing level.

"Of the more than 10 steps in making hotdog, from raw material receiving to dispatching, we have to identify the most critical points, and these are: cooking, metal detection and quality consistency control," she said.

"During the cooking process, we observe a 3-step method to make sure that phytogenic microorganisms are eliminated," she said.