The podcast interview with Catherine can be listened to or downloaded here
Catherine started off by telling us some of the history behind the GFSI
Back in the year 2000, food safety was very much top of mind with consumers around the world, there had been a whole series of several high profile recalls, quarantines, and a lot of negative publicity in addition to food safety scares, such as BSE, dioxins and that sort of thing. The GFSI is actually managed by the Consumer Goods Forum, which is an international food business association working with retailers and manufacturers from around the world, and their CEO’s really took the decision that consumer trust needed to be strengthened, it needed to be maintained and at the same time the supply chain needed to be made safer and they saw the ideal way to do that was through the harmonisation of food safety standards, which could at the same time could also drive cost efficiency for businesses in the supply chain, and that’s really why the Global Food Safety Initiative was created back in 2000.She also talked about the process that the GFSI has gone through in harmonising the world’s multiple food safety standards and schemes
