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| Sunday, 15 January 2006 |
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Business |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Only HACCP
certified tea to EU from June
by Elmo Leonard From June this year all tea entering the 25 European Union member countries will have to come from HACCP - Hazard Analysis Critical Controlled Point certified factories. Already, much of the food entering the EU nations conform to such regulations. The EU announced this requirement, binding all food coming into its member nations on January 1. Sri Lanka has over 300 tea factories. Around 50 percent of these factories belong to the 26 private tea companies. The balance are owned by proprietary tea smallholdings, which belong to the low grown elevation. Most of the 26 plantation companies have HACCP accredited factories. The others, together with the smallholdings have appealed to the government, through the Ministries of Finance and Plantations, for easy pay-back loans equivalent to $25,000, to update their factories to EEC regulations. To conform to HACCP requirements, the cleanliness and hygenic conditions of all aspects of the factory including the water used are scrutinised, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka Standards Institution (SLSI) said. There are other accrediting organisations in operation here, conforming to specifications laid down by the International Organisation for Standardisation, based in Geneva. SLSI finds that the other, overseas headquartered accrediting organisations operating here, complement the work done by it towards laying down standard specifications, the spokesman said. Such certifying organisations should be registered with the Sri Lanka Accreditation Board of the Ministries of Science and Technology. |
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