Feed the Future Business Drivers for Food Safety (BD4FS), funded by USAID and implemented by Food Enterprise Solutions (FES), is a multicountry (Senegal, Ethiopia and Nepal) project that works alongside small and medium enterprises (SMEs) — or as they are referred to in the BD4FS project, “growing food businesses (GFBs)” — to co-design and implement incentive-based strategies to accelerate the adoption of food safety practices in local food systems.

Through its applied research and implementation of BD4FS, FES has developed a preparatory stage for these companies to be better prepared to participate in the broader, more difficult and more expensive certifications to comply with both local and international trade laws. This can enable GFBs in developing markets to reduce key risks in growing a sustainable food business to meet the ever-increasing demands, needs, expectations and trust of government food safety regulators and consumers.

By focusing on the role of local food businesses in improving food safety, the FES team has added to USAID’s knowledge base regarding strategies and methodologies for enterprise-level assistance in food system strengthening, developed best practices and lessons learned and generated success stories from collaborating with entrepreneurs to improve food safety. Stakeholder engagement also raises national awareness around the issue of food safety and lays the foundation for the promotion of a “food safety culture” among all actors in a national food system.

Development and adoption of food safety systems is very inconsistent among developing countries. Emerging economies are still in an evolutionary stage and there are several barriers to successfully implementing Hazard Analysis for Critical Control Points (HACCP) or other food safety systems. Some countries have required partial adoption of HACCP in their processing plants, whereas others have struggled. Red meat production in China has grown at a rate of 5.8% annually. However, less than 10% of their production facilities are HACCP certified. As of now, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Africa and in parts of Asia, there is limited formal reporting of outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and transparent tracking of contaminated food.

Developing countries still struggle with uniform regulatory implementation of food safety standards. To continue to decrease foodborne illness worldwide, focus needs to be expanded on increasing implementation of these proven systems in developing countries, particularly at the SME level.

For additional information, see the full report on the Nepal food safety audit.