Retailer Food Safety Program: a CSR initiative of EBM

English Biscuit Manufacturers Private Limited (EBM) is a company with an uncompromising commitment to provide healthy, wholesome, nutritious and hygienically packed safe food to its customers. This commitment has been an integral part of the company since its very inception over 40 years ago.
Leading on from this, some 8 years ago, EBM took upon itself the challenging task of promoting the concept of safe food across the entire food industry of Pakistan for others to be inspired by and emulate too. Thus in year 2002 EBM teamed up with United Registrar of Systems or URS, a UK based food quality and safety certification organisation, to develop a forum for creating the desired awareness of food safety. EBM is the country's largest manufacturer of healthy, wholesome and nutritious biscuits, and URS is a highly reputed UK based food quality and safety certification organisation. EBM is the only biscuit manufacturer in Pakistan to have been awarded the ISO 9001:2000 & ISO-22000 certifications on Food Safety Systems.
The challenge before the partners was to rouse the people to their indignation on the lack of focus on Food Safety and to eventually end the incidence of unhygienic and unhealthy food consumption throughout the country. With this vision in mind, EBM and URS established an energetic and effective forum for creating widespread awareness of food safety. So came into being the Annual Safe Food Conferences being held since the year 2002.
EBM and URS have been organizing the annual Safe Food Conference for the last 8 years to raise awareness about food safety whereby experts and executives get a chance to share their experiences and devise strategies to enhance their focus and performances in this specific area. Each year the Safe Food Conferences have pursued the stated Mission with an expanding outreach. The objective has been to reach out to all audiences, including the government and regulatory bodies, the academia, food product manufacturers, sellers and retailers, healthcare professionals, opinion leaders, decision makers, and of course the consumers.
The series of Safe Food Conferences have been a great source of knowledge and information dissemination. Over the 8 conferences held so far, 47 scientific papers on food safety issues and regulations have been presented. Speakers from over 15 countries have presented papers at Safe Food events, bringing to the table international best practices and experiences.
Over 4,500 people have attended the conferences. Each of these 4,500 people have then gone on to spread the message of safe food in their respective organisations and homes. A major milestone has been that over 30 Pakistani companies, who attended the Safe Food Conference have been inspired by the concept of Food Safety and gone on to achieved food safety certification for their organisations. This significant development is ensuring a much wider availability of safe food for the public than before.
As a quality conscious company EBM takes all the necessary steps to ensure that the food they provide to consumers in the form of biscuits is safe, hygienic and of the highest quality. At each step, from training sessions of their suppliers, to the sourcing and selection of raw materials, from mixing, forming and baking in temperature controlled environment, to the final packaging, the focus of the company is on hygiene and maintaining standards of excellence. At the final stages of handling the cartons and stacking them at their warehouses, EBM takes complete care of their products. Even at the warehouses of their distributors the company has enforced incredibly strict quality checks and controls.
But in the market-place where the living conditions are poor and awareness regarding food safety measures almost non existent, the manner in which packaged products are often placed with complete disregard for spoiling factors such as severe exposure to sunlight and dampness, unhygienic storage conditions and no food safety precautionary measures, highly affect their taste and quality making the locals shockingly oblivious to not only the true taste of products but also the great health risk they expose themselves and others to.
The Safe Food Conference series seen in the light of corporate social responsibility or CSR, clearly establish the concern of EBM for public health. It also demonstrates their resolve to be a catalyst for change by promoting safe food across the entire food industry in the country - involving manufacturers and vendors, academia and researchers, consumers, regulatory authorities and the government.
EBM has at each conference showcased its year round efforts towards the cause of Food Safety with specific relevance to the conference theme. In the last conference that was held, the theme of the conference revolved around the significance of Safe Food for consumers in Recessionary Times.
In order to have long term positive ramifications and to secure the focus on Food Safety for all times, EBM realized that Food Safety values must be embedded in the lifestyles of the current and future generations i.e. the children of today. With this objective in mind, EBM embarked on a major CSR initiative called the EBM Safe Food School Outreach Program. The objective of this program was to reach out and interact directly with the children to educate them on Food Safety measures which they should take at all times irrespective of the economic conditions. By targeting the children of today on the importance of Food Safety, EBM has indeed invested in a healthier future for the nation.
The theme of this year's conference is "Enhancing Food Safety at Retail Level". EBM is wary of the fact that the farm to fork philosophy of the Food Safety chain is incomplete if the retail channel is not addressed. EBM has realised that even the best in-house food safety measures taken by organisations such as their own may become meaningless if retailer's are not taken in the loop and educated on the impact of unhygienic, contaminated or sub-standard food in the form of counterfeits on health and the efforts that they specifically need to take at their end to ensure food safety for the consumers.
With this deep understanding in mind, EBM has now set out on yet another CSR initiative of educating the Retailers via a comprehensive "EBM - Retailer Food Safety Program".
EBM's Retailer Food Safety Program simultaneously kicked off in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi / Islamabad and has already been attended by hundreds of retailers. The message of Food Safety has been shared with the retailers through a video presentation that speaks to them in simple language that they not only easily understand but also can relate with.
The video presentation of EBM's Retailer Food Safety Program focuses on:
-- Highlighting the importance of the retail channel in the food safety chain and towards a healthier Pakistan
-- Sharing the current factual position at the retail level where packed products with total disregard of factors that directly affect food safety
-- Educating retailers on the specific actions that they need to take at their end to ensure food safety
-- Informing the retailers of the benefits that they will get if they follow certain basic food safety guidelines
For the retailers the training workshops have been a unique opportunity to enhance their learning regarding Food Safety matters. Most have been roused to their indignation by the impact of unsafe food on health, their own lack of apathy of the situation and surprised at the qualitative and quantitative benefits they could derive by following simple food safety guidelines.
Prior to the training workshops, many of the retailers did not even realise the grave health hazard they exposed their customers and consumers to when they consciously or unconsciously sold counterfeit products. These counterfeit and look-alike products not only affect consumer's health, but damage the reputation of the retailer who is branded by consumers as one who sells low quality spurious products. For food products where quality remains sacrosanct and uncompromising for the final consumer, even one bad experience directly results in the consumer's decision to move to another outlet from where to do their shopping. At a national level, retailers were made to realise the losses in millions of rupees to the national exchequer by way of unpaid taxes and duties when they promote and sell counterfeit products.
It was evident by speaking to the retailers that this activity had a positive impact on them. Those exposed to the EBM Retailer Food Safety Program are now more eager than ever before because a sense of realisation and motivation had dawned on them that at their own individual level they too could be a part of a bigger vision...a healthy nation.
EBM's Retailer Food Safety Program has already reached out to hundreds of retailers and has been successful in delivering the message of Safe Food to them. But for EBM this is only the start. The wheels have been set in motion as they gear themselves to reach out to thousands of more Retailers in other urban and rural cities throughout Pakistan. It is a Herculean task but not one that EBM is shying away from because as a good corporate citizen EBM feels that it is their social responsibility to attend to this matter of Safe Food that demands and commands immediate attention. Only by doing so can EBM's dream of a Healthy Pakistan turn into a reality.
Mrs Saadia Naveed, Deputy Managing Director of EBM says:
"We strongly believe that creation of mass awareness of food safety issues is essential to generate and mobilise the support of key health partners in government and civil society, and provide avenues to build collaboration for health actions. It is also essential to educate not only consumers but also retailers at the grass root levels on food safety issues, and the impact of unhygienic and contaminated food on health so as to minimise the possible risks to the final consumers"