James Kon
Stressing on the importance of cleanliness and safety for the local food processing industry, the National Standards Centre (NSC) under the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE) in collaboration with the Brunei Darussalam Food Authority (BDFA) on Tuesday conducted a socialisation programme on PBD 38:2022 – Good Manufacturing Practice, GMP for Food Industry at Al-’Afiah Hall, Ministry of Health.
The socialisation event was held to raise awareness of the Piawai Brunei Darussalam (PBD)under PBD 38:2022 – Good Manufacturing Practice. The standard provides guidance on the multiple important elements for food manufacturing, whereby cleanliness and safety is vital; from the time of receiving the raw materials, including the handling of these ingredients and its processing, the packaging and storage of the finished processed food up to the selling or marketing of these processed food products.
Chairperson of the organising committee, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BDFA Wong Wai See, in her welcoming remark reiterated the role of the BDFA in developing food standards to ensure safe food production for consumption, and also to facilitate trade.
She stressed BDFA’s hope that the local food industry or business entrepreneurs will gain recognition for adhering to the high food safety standards as part of their everyday practice.
She also expressed her appreciation to the team in the Working Group on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (WG-HACCP) under the Technical Committee on Management System (TCMS) for their effort and diligence in developing this standard.
The guest of honour, Director of the Industry and Business Ecosystem Division of the MoFE Allen On, in his capacity as Acting Director of the NSC, emphasised the important role played by NSC in streamlining standard development activities that adhere to regional and international standards in his opening remarks. He highlighted that PBD 38:2022 – Good Manufacturing Practice (Food Industry Sector) serves to streamline food industry players to meet the safety requirements.
With these standards in place, he expressed his confidence that Brunei will achieve the deliverables as outlined within the Food Industry Roadmap and one of the goals of Brunei Vision 2035, ie becoming a dynamic and sustainable economy.
NSC Special Duties Officer Grade II Pengiran Abdul Shahid bin Pengiran Haji Amir Bahar also gave a presentation on the role of NSC in the development of National Standards and BDFA Technical Office and Chairperson of the WG-HACCP Siti Nasreyah binti Haji Ahmed shared the contents of the PBD 38:2022 and provided insights into the elements of good manufacturing practices in a food processing facility.
The socialisation event was attended by 110 participants made up of stakeholders from government departments and private sector, namely food manufacturing companies, service providers and higher education institutions. The PBD 38:2022 document was also sold during the event.
