Food safety through consumer sensitivity

Posted by OmarTarakiNiodeFoundation
24 October 2012 | blogpost

We are pleased to feature a guest blog post from Christianto Budiman, recipient of Omar Taraki Niode M.Sc. Travel Award.

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Food safety through consumer sensitivity

Food production has three important components: (1) Food Nutrition, (2) Food Quality, and (3) Food Safety.

It is meaningless to consume nutritious and high quality food but unsafe and harmful to those who eat them. Food safety, however, is often overlooked in the selection of food products to be consumed.

Food additives

Certain producers use harmful food additives in their food processing to improve texture, flavor, color, or quality, such as extending the shelf life of food products. The types of harmful food additives commonly found in Indonesia are: Rhodamine B, Borax, and Formalin.

Rhodamine B is used to give a bright red color in food products, such as crackers, shrimp paste, confectionery, syrups, and soft drinks.

Borax in food processing is abused to improve color, texture, and flavor of food such as noodles, meatballs, and rice cake.

Formalin is misused to preserve or to extend the shelf life of food products such as noodles, tofu and meatballs. Those hazardous materials when consumed by humans can cause poisoning, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, leading to cancer and death.

Food safety policy

Seeing how bad the effects of consuming food products containing hazardous materials, the Government of Indonesia through the National Agency of Drug and Food Control (Badan POM) has issued several policies prohibiting the use of such materials in food processing. These are Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection and Law No. 28 of 2004 on Food Safety, Food Quality and Nutrition.

All the regulations, however, do not guarantee food safety despite the sanctions of both civil and criminal law clearly stated in the Acts.

Weak oversight and enforcement resulted in violations, impacting food safety. Apparently, preventive use of hazardous materials throughout the food chain by using the law and the bureaucracy could not control food producers.

Restructuring of bureaucracy and arming regulatory bodies with officials who are competent, knowledgeable, and sensitive about food safety will require time and money.

The power or consumers

Knowing all the limitations, we as consumers should not just sit back and wait for food safety improvement in Indonesia. Consumers must be willing to sweat a little and be part of the change. One thing to do is to increase our sensitivity to the importance of food safety.

The government should not always focus on food safety education for food producers in Indonesia, as it proved not to be effective and efficient.  This is most likely due to a dilemma of choosing between the conscience to fight for food safety and the desire to get high profits.

In such condition, consumers play an important role in having safe food products available in Indonesia.

Counseling on the importance of food safety to consumers, education, and the establishment of non-governmental organizations to channel the aspirations and voices of consumers to food producers in Indonesia are required to move from high profit thinking to social responsibility.

High sensitivity will make consumers think before deciding which food products to buy. Consumers will avoid unsafe food products even if they are high in quality and nutrition.

Basic management principles should play a role in food markets in Indonesia, where if there is no demand for food products containing hazardous materials, production will cease.

Indonesia will then be free from foods that do not meet predetermined food safety standards and ensure the availability and sustainability of safe foods in the country.

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Images: BPOM, Omar Niode Foundation