August 29, 2012
The Federal Government is being requested by the stakeholders in the Bio-organics industry to list vitamins and minerals premixes on the banned list currently being compiled by the government.
They said the importance of Bio-organics in the campaign for good nutrition required local flour millers to be encouraged to source their materials locally.
Acholonu said to ensure standard quality of micronutrients in the country, his organisation has concluded plans to build the first - ever world standard micronutrient laboratory in the country before the end of first quarter of next year.
According to him, "Technology is key to industrial development and global competitiveness and the global market place as of today demands global standards and global best practices in all spheres of economic activity such as: pharmaceuticals, food processing industries, animal feed amongst others. He appealed to the SON DG to sensitise all flour milling industries in Nigeria that the technology, products and services for fortification of flour is available from Bio-Organics Nutrient Systems Limited.
In his presentation, the Food Safety Officer/ISO Management Co-ordinator of Bio-organics Nutrient Systems Limited, Emmanuel Onoh, noted that apart from creating over 200,000 jobs within three years, it would also improve drastically maternal and infant mortality rate from the WHO's 10% to about o.5%.
Onoh said it would ensure better nourishment of the Nigerian people and improved result of the health sector, improved level of intellectual productivity which translates to decrease social crises as well as higher industrial and regulatory human capital capacity.
"SON should play advocacy role to the Federal government on the need to encourage local premix manufacturers with duty-free raw-materials importation, better access to funds at special interest rate and ISO 22000 standards as minimum quality platform for manufacturing premix in Nigeria," he added.
Responding, Director General, SON, Joseph Odumodu stressed the need for collaborative efforts towards ensuring international standard laboratories where food products would be analysed to ensure they conform to world standard.
"What we need to do is that we have to move fast and work in a collaborative way. This is an area of comfort for me, but we need to get to the next level. We must find a way to see how we are going to analyse your products outside of Nigeria and to be able to bench mark them against those imported products. We are thinking of getting a land around here to also build a multi-functional laboratory.
The next level is quality and prices, because government would want to ensure that you don't create a problem while you are trying to solve one. I must commend you on the certifications you have gotten already."
