In a sustained effort: 11 food factories receive ISO certification

Sources at the Ministry of Industry disclosed a new agreement with the United Nations Development Program to support the Ministry’s technical capacities as part of its TOKTEN program to transfer knowledge through expatriate nationals.  To this effect, UNDP assigned Dr. Fadi Aramuni, an American-Lebanese food safety expert to undertake a quality assessment study of the following two sectors: meat products, pastries and sweets. Furthermore, Aramuni trained Industry Ministry inspectors for two days on food safety measures mainly, biological, chemical and physical hazards, methods of taking and transferring food samples and proper compliance guidelines. In the same vein, Minister of Economy and Trade, Alan Hakim, announced the attainment by the following 11 food enterprises of the 22000 and 22005 ISO specifications, namely: Tayibat (frozen potato); Olive Trade (olive oil); Delta Group for trade and industry (spices); Maatouk (coffee); Laflox (Yamama for vinegars, aromatic water and pomegranate molasses); Diabco (Al Amira Roastery); Hashem Industry and Trading Group (sweets and syrups powder) and Al Rifai Roasteries. A statement by the Ministry of Trade disclosed that the first ten factories are among 20 food enterprises which were covered by the European Union funded National Quality Policy Program and have received technical advice and training support over a one year period. This new batch of factories joins another of 20 factories which were rehabilitated earlier under the same initiative. (Al Diyar, 9 June 2015)