As part of its pursuit of raising quality standards in the local agro processing sector, the Guyana Marketing Corporation (GMC) has been both initiating and supporting sensitization and training for agro processors aimed at upgrading production standards and supporting the readying of products for the market. The GMC’s product enhancement initiatives take account of its awareness of the competitive pressures that face local producers arising out of rising customer expectations locally, regionally and internationally. Most recently, the GMC partnered with the Guyana School of Agriculture (GSA) to host a one-day training workshop for local pepper sauce producers. The goal of the workshop, the GMC said, was to equip the participants to further enhance the quality of the local brands of pepper sauce currently on the market in order to enhance local and international appeal.
Stabroek Business understands that the one-day, November 27 exercise which was executed at the GSA’s Mon Repos complex, was particularly concerned with enhancing participants’ understanding of the importance of deploying strict food security principles in the production process, extending from the harvesting, gathering, cleaning and processing of fruit to the bottling of the finished product.
In pursuit of its efforts to reinforce a strong food safety regime as part of the production process, that GMC is responding to a continually growing emphasis among major food importers on food safety standards, not least the high profile initiatives made by the United States to impose stricter oversight on food safety through the provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act.
