Ho, July 12, GNA - Many local food producing and processing companies lack quality management systems, Mr Roderick Daddey-Adjei, Eastern and Volta Zonal Officer of the Food and Drugs Board, (FDB) has said.

Mr Daddey-Adjei was speaking at a training workshop on the implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices and Quality Assurance for managers and owners of food manufacturing companies in the Eastern and Volta regions, in Ho, on Tuesday.

The three-day workshop, under the auspices of the FDB, is, therefore, aimed at sensitizing participants to ensure highest standards in producing safe and good quality food.

Mr Daddey-Adjei said documented reports based on periodic inspection of food manufacturing facilities throughout the country indicated that 93basic but very crucial" manufacturing practices were being ignored by most food producing companies.

He said, for instance, many sachet water producers do not have appropriate machines and were operating with inappropriate infrastructure.

Mr Daddey-Adjei described this 91as very worrying' though, he said, the situation was being handled with some people facing prosecution for manufacturing and offering for sale unregistered food products.

He said the FDB in its quest to ensure safe and good quality food for consumers would provide training on good manufacturing practices and quality assurance, give reasonable period for its implementation in stages and re-check to ensure compliance.

Participants will be taken through issues of basic quality assurance, contracting competent quality control laboratories to conduct periodic basic tests to ascertain product quality and safety, among others.