Posted on November, 29, 2018 at 11:31 am
SMALL scale food entrepreneurs in Shinyanga are undergoing training on food hygiene and quality to improve safety and protect consumers’ health from traders who control a lion share of the food market.
Tanzania Food and Drug Authority (TFDA) Deputy Director of Food Security and Medicine Mr Justin Makisi said the training in Shinyanga was part of countrywide initiative to train small-scale food traders who control 74 per cent of the food market.
The entrepreneurs need education on food health related matter to improve products quality and quantity while safeguarding consumers, he said.
“TFDA is conducting training to different places and already 24 regions plus their districts, municipalities and cities have been covered,” he said during the training.
The aims of the training apart from health and safety centred on building entrepreneurs capacity and product improvement to warrant some to graduate to large scale producers.
Mr Makisi said the government agencies have partnered by signing a MoU to make it easy for small scale food manufacturers to operate. The agency in question are TFDA, BRELA, Tanzania Trade Development Authority (TanTrade),Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO) and Tanzania Bureau of Standard (TBS).
The partnership among agencies enables small-scale manufacturers to register their business premises and sample testing and certifying for free while they need 50,000/- for business registration.
The Shinyanga Regional Commissioner, Ms Zainab Telack who was represented by District Commissioner (DC) Ms Jasinta Mboneko, said the training was a good opportunity for entrepreneurs to get first hand education on improving their products, services and quality of goods.
She said that the training was important to enable their goods to compete not only locally but also regionally thus transforming the country into industrial state by 2025 .
“This education may help you to overcome some barriers that a required in order to attain TFDA and TBS certifications,” Ms Mboneko said.
Gogogo Mills Directors Mr Goodliving Kileo said they hailed the government agencies decision to partner a move that simplified their doing business while saving some expenses.
Source: Daily News