Spices Board sets up collaborative training centre for food safety

KOCHI: The Spices Board has set up a collaborative training centre for food safety and supply chain management in partnership with CII and USFDA.

The centre, the first of its kind in India, has been set up on the basis of the discussions at the World Spice Congress held in Pune in February this year.

The collaborative training centre for food safety and supply chain management in spices/ botanical ingredients has been set up to facilitate capacity building and developing product specific testing procedures in the sector of spices and botanical ingredients.

In the first phase, training has commenced for over 60 officials and functionaries from 50 organisations from both the Government and non government sector consisting of processors, trader, exporters etc. The phase two for selected delegates will be held in USA for two week training.

In phase three, the selected participants would be involved in a series of workshop and training programmes in different regions of India.

The training centre assumes importance in the context of some countries, especially USA and EU, bringing in stringent legislations regarding the standards of spices imported to respective countries. This will give producing countries like India, an edge over the other competitors on the export front.