How UN World Food Programme (WFP) quality requirements and continuous training of stakeholders ensure conflict-affected families receive safe, quality food.
Kano state is the commercial centre of Northern Nigeria where suppliers and traders meet to supply other regions with food and other goods. When WFP started the response tothe crisis in the northern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe in 2016, Kano was quickly identified as the best place to source local products like sorghum, millet, white beans, iodized salt and cow peas.
“At the beginning, it was not easy to find the right products and quality. However, we identified a few suppliers which we thought had the potential to meet our standards in future and started working with them,” says Mohamed Nasser, Food Technologist with WFP Nigeria.
Mahrouf Ahmad, Operations Manager at Kano-based Dankata, one of the suppliers WFP identified at an early stage, explains the improvements he has observed in the company since the collaboration with WFP started.
“In 2016, we struggled to supply 150 MT of food a day, while also meeting the quality and safety standards. Our capacity has now increased ten times and we are able to deliver more than 1,500 MT of food every day. We also increased our workforce from 20 to 46 permanent staff and from 40 to more than 500 casual workers hired on a daily basis. The storage capacity also increased tenfold and it is now 30,000 square metres. One of the main lessons we’ve learned over the past few years is that food quality and safety is crucial and WFP is not going to accept any compromises in this regard.”
WFP’s quality control process happens at many different levels, following the journey of the food — starting from suppliers, through warehouses managed by third parties to reaching WFP staff and finally the cooperating partners who distribute it. All those involved, including inspection companies, need to learn how to improve the quality and safety of the food they handle.
“Capacity building is a focus for WFP because all stakeholders —whatever their background — can become advocates for better quality and safety standards at the national level,” explains Mohamed Nasser, adding that allowing ‘learning by doing’ can lead to significant improvements. WFP provides advice and guidance not just on food quality but also on other aspects, including warehouse management and food handling.
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