Chicken Farmers of Canada is the first commodity in Canada to be awarded full government recognition for its on-farm food safety assurance program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Ottawa, March 19, 2013 – Chicken Farmers of Canada (CFC) was awarded with full federal, provincial and territorial government recognition for its On-Farm Food Safety Assurance Program (OFFSAP) at its annual meeting in Ottawa today. The announcement was made by the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada.

CFC is the first commodity organization in Canada to achieve this level of government recognition for the effective and consistent implementation of its OFFSAP that promotes the production of safe food at the farm level.

“CFC has been committed to our OFFSAP, to the government recognition process and to demonstrating to consumers the commitment of Canadian chicken farmers to food safety. CFC is proud to receive full government recognition of the OFFSAP,” said Dave Janzen, Chair of CFC. This commitment has been demonstrated by the mandatory enforcement of the OFFSAP in each province from coast to coast.

The federal, provincial and territorial on-farm food safety recognition program, combined with CFC’s long-standing leadership in on-farm food safety programming, demonstrate the commitment of both government and industry to providing consumers with safe, high quality, Canadian food.

This achievement reflects the commitment of all chicken farmers to implement and maintain a comprehensive national on-farm food safety assurance program.

“The commitment demonstrated by chicken farmers across Canada has been confirmed by achieving full government recognition of the OFFSAP, which only enhances the many reasons that we are proud to grow chicken that Canadians can trust,” indicated Janzen.

Funding for this program has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Canadian Integrated Food Safety Initiative under Growing Forward.

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For more information: Marty Brett, Senior Communications Officer, at (613) 566-5926. Chicken Farmers of Canada is online at www.chicken.ca.

Background:

The OFFSAP is a comprehensive program involving a producer manual that promotes the production of safe food at the farm level and adheres to Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles as defined by Codex Alimentarius and a management manual based on ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standards.

The federal, provincial and territorial government On-Farm Food Safety Recognition Program is a process to review, assess, recognize and monitor the technical soundness and administrative effectiveness of on-farm food safety systems developed and implemented by Canada’s national producer organizations.

CFC’s OFFSAP was the first commodity program in Canada to receive Phase I technical recognition in 2002 and the second commodity program to receive Phase 2 technical recognition of its management system in 2006. Currently, over 96% of Canadian chicken farmers are certified on the OFFSAP.