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Food
Research Institute gets ISO certification
Accra, Dec. 12, Ghanadot/GNA - The South African National
Accreditation System (SANAS), has granted accreditation to
11 microbiological and four chemical laboratory methods of
the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
Food Research Institute (FRI).
SANAS is a member of the International Laboratory
Accreditation Cooperation and the accreditation makes FRI
the first food testing laboratories in the West Africa
Sub-region.
FRI is also now linked to the International Organisation for
Standardization (ISO) and International Electro- Technical
Commission (IEC) standards.
The certification started from May 2007 and would expire in
2012 if FRI did not work hard to maintain the standard.
ISO 17025 is an international standard, which defines the
requirements that a testing or calibration laboratory has to
fulfil to show that it is technically competent and operates
an efficient management system to ensure that it produces
analytical results that should be accepted globally.
Professor Emmanuel Owusu-Bennoah, Director-General of CSIR,
who announced this at a press conference in Accra, said to
obtain accreditation to ISO 17025, a laboratory had to
implement a quality management system, which dealt with the
management and the technical operations of the laboratory.
"The laboratory then applies to the accreditation body,
which assesses all documentations and procedures with
respect to the quality management system and also carries
out an on-site assessment of all technical operations
including a rigorous assessment of the individual technical
staff that carries out the analysis in the laboratory.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said the Danish government through
DANIDA funded activities of the FRI, which enabled it to
achieve accreditation to ISO 17025, and was grateful for the
support over the years.
The 11 microbiological methods were Enumeration of yeast and
moulds, enumeration of presumptive Escherichia coli,
detection of Salmonella, Coliform bacteria detection in
foods, determination of Bacillus cereus in foods,
determination of aerobic micro-organisms and detection of
thermo-tolerant coliform bacteria in foods after
pre-incubation among a number of tests.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said some of the key provisions in the
Act of Parliament (Act 521), which re-established the
Council in 1996 catered for such matters as private sector
concerns and commercialisation of research.
He said that marked a radical departure from the principles
that characterize CSIR originally and owing to the
refocusing of the scope of operations and activities, it had
become overwhelmingly imperative for the CSIR to offer
needed services to the business and the industrial sector
more directly so as to play a more effective role in
national development.
The Director-General, therefore, called on exporters and
importers, food regulatory agencies and all relevant
stakeholders in the food industry to avail themselves of
facilities at the FRI to make for a better food control
system in the country.
Dr William A. Plahar, Director, CSIR/FRI, said the major
achievements of the CSIR/FRI over the years were recognised
in terms of the significant contribution to the development
of Trade and Industry, Agricultural, Health and Educational
sectors of the national economy.
He said, in addition to technology development and transfer
for enhanced national food and nutrition security and
poverty reduction, the institute renders technical and
analytical services to several local food industries on
regular basis.
Prof. Edward S. Ayensu, Chairman of CSIR Council, said it
was a petty that simple recipe such as fruit juice, which
could be easily prepared in Ghana were being imported into
the country.
"Now that you got the accreditation, it was my hope that you
would move forward and encourage the entrepreneurs to
produce some of the food recipes for the consumption of the
local people," he said.
ISO 17025 is produced jointly by ISO and the IEC and deals
specifically with testing and calibration laboratories to
ensure that they operate at a level, which provides
assurance of the quality of service produced by the
laboratories.
GNA
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