The Food and Drugs Authority says its commitment towards ensuring that food and drugs sold on the Ghanaian market are wholesome is absolute.
To this end, the Authority has revised the ‘Guidelines for Shelf Life for Processed Foods’.
The revision was to allow for the inclusion of guidelines for shelf life of food processed locally and penalties for recalcitrant manufacturers.
Speaking to manufacturers, importers, officials of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority and the media at Wa, the Regional Manager of the Food and Drugs Authority, Albert Ankomah said the new guidelines is to among other things ensure that when the FDA embarks on its routine market surveillance, unwholesome products are not to be found on shelves of wholesale and retail outlets.
As part of the new guidelines from the FDA, for the shelf life of locally manufactured food items must have a clearly stated Best Before or Expiry Date.
In addition, the Expiry Date must be a minimum of 60 percent of the product’s shelf life.
This means manufacturers must ensure that products with the expiration date of 2 years must have at least a year and half of the time before its expiry intact before it leaves the manufacturer for sale to consumers.
Similarly, products with an expiration date of 1 year must have a minimum of 8 months of its expiry date intact before it leaves the manufacturing site for sale.
The guidelines continue to say that products with a total of shelf life of 3 months must leave the manufacturers end while it still has a minimum of 2 months of its shelf life still intact.
The Regional Manager of the Food and Drugs Authority, Albert Ankomah said failure on the part of manufacturers to comply with the new directives would lead to severe punishment.
“This new one (guidelines), we have included products manufactured locally and added specifically when you sell expired products what will be done to you. Previously, the guidelines were on only products being imported,” he explained.
Mr. Ankomah said market surveillance exercises in the region during the year had led to the seizure of some expired products which would be safely disposed.
Mr. Ankomah said although the FDA had increased its education in recent times, some wholesalers and retailers still have expired products on their shelf.
“Our aim as an Authority is to continue to educate the retailers, importers and distributers so that whenever we enter shops for our market surveillance activities, we will not be having unfit or expired product but as at now, when we enter the shops we do find some of these products (expired or unwholesome products),” he said.
The Regional Manager encouraged the public to report manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers who have expired products on their shelves to the Authority for the necessary action to be taken.
Story filed by Mark Smith
