Project background

Agriculture and agricultural exports are important pillars of the Ukrainian economy, however the lack of compliance with EU and international food safety standards is a major obstacle towards the export ambition of the country towards the EU. Hence, investing in reinforcement of food safety in the dairy value chain matches the strategic aim to strengthen economic sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises by improving the business climate, export diversification and integration in international trade. The goal of the project was to establish a modern food safety control system in the dairy value chain in Ukraine.

Our work

SAFOSO was the implementing organization for this technical assistance project. The project’s activities were focused on the one hand on providing technical assistance to the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection and on the other hand on assisting the milk processing industry to put in place an extension program to improve the production of safe and high quality milk in the primary industry. The project consisted of three main components:

• establishing the institutional arrangements to ensure an integrated milk safety control system by State Service on Food Safety and Consumer Protection of Ukraine
• increasing the knowledge and providing modern tools for implementation of an efficient risk-based milk safety inspection system
• strengthening the capacity of private industry to produce safe milk products for consumers in Ukraine and abroad.

Results

Food safety in general and milk safety in particular have been mainstreamed in national policy dialogues. With support of our project, a new Milk Hygiene Order was developed and adopted, laying down regulatory minimum requirements for the quality and safety of raw milk for commercial processing. A national level raw milk monitoring program was developed and a pilot phase was initiated, during which practices and procedures for such a national program were tested. General awareness on the importance of raw milk quality for food safety and value chain productivity increased significantly both among public and private stakeholders. As a result of the significant progress during this project, the State Secretariate for Economic Affairs decided to continue providing funds for technical assistance  to the Ukrainain dairy sector.

For more information on this new program, please have a look here.