Rentokil Initial KK Partnered With MOH To Share Insights With Food Auditors
Most Malaysians prioritise more about food taste rather than food safety. In Malaysia, food is likely to be sold anywhere and literally any corner, with little attention being paid to food hygiene. More than 50% of food poisoning episodes were contributed by unhygienic food handling procedure, falling short from the food safety standards required. As a strong advocator for food safety standards, Rentokil Initial Kota Kinabalu branch has recently collaborated with Ministry of Health Kota Kinabalu, sharing their expertise through a training conducted at Kolej Sains Bersekutu, Bukit Padang, Kota Kinabalu.
A total of 32 Food Safety Officers attended the training conducted by Field Biologist from Rentokil Initial Kota Kinabalu. The workshop highlighted on the importance of Total Pest Awareness in food supply chain management, specifically targeting to the East Malaysia food industry. East Malaysia is developing towards a domestic agro-food industry, where more and more daily source of food are farmed locally and produced through local food processing industry.
In Sabah, palm oil and F&B industries are becoming the top booming industries, contributing RM19 billion to the state’s income annually, according to recent news from Borneo Post and Palm Oil Industry Cluster (POIC). Both of these industries are major players in the entire food supply chain, where food safety standards regulations are strictly important in ensuring customers enjoy safe food and lowering the chances of getting foodborne illnesses.
Alongside with the growth of these local industries in Sabah, the state MOH is beefing up on the local food safety standards by raising greater awareness on stringent food audit, especially to the food processing sectors. In achieving this efforts, MOH has collaborated with experts from Rentokil Pest Control Kota Kinabalu by sharing a same platform together to conduct this training on raising food safety standards and enhanced traceability of information to these group of Food Safety officers. During the insights sharing session, Field Biologist from Rentokil Pest Control KK shared on Integrated Pest Management. Pest infestation is one of the biggest challenge in food supply chain management, and it can be found right from the first stage of pest infested crops at the farm level.
However, with the Integrated Pest Management, early detection of pest infestation can be identified, and effective measures can be taken with our ERDM (Exclusion, Restriction, Destruction and Monitoring) system. Besides, the training also shared on innovative measures such as myRentokil, a market leading online reporting system that provides better traceability on pest risk management and detailed report for auditing purposes.
“Raising the bar for food safety standard is no mean feat but we believe through our close partnership with Ministry of Health, together we will work towards achieving a safer food for consumers in Kota Kinabalu and also other parts of Malaysia. With our global expertise in this field, it is our ultimate goal to reduce the number of foodborne diseases.” says Carol Lam, Managing Director of Rentokil Initial (M) Sdn Bhd
Rentokil Initial places great importance on food safety simply living up to our motto “Protecting People, Enhancing Lives”. Living true to its word, the company plays an active role in advocating for raising food safety standards in order to protect the health and well-being of consumers.