By Bianca Iboma-Emefu
The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), has enjoined stakeholders and cake professionals to comply with regulatory rules, get certification and produce quality cake of international standard.
Assistant Director and Head, Food Technology Product Certification Directorate, Mrs. Chidinma Ewuzie, made the remark at the Nigerian Association of Cake And Sugar Craft Professionals (NACSP) Stakeholders Conference held in Lagos, recently. She said the cake industry is a huge market that has created employment for the nation’s teeming youths which must be taken to another level of quality cake production. She stated that SON has recognised the cake industry but needs review and certification to affirm its global certification, stressing that the quality of raw materials used for baking cakes was vital to enable them bake in any part of the world as well as market their products internationally once they meet the requisite standard.
She said “The major areas they need to concentrate on include products, process, personnel and equipment which provide the required standards for SON to measure quality products.
Ewuzie encouraged the association to pay attention to the quality of materials and ensure compliance in the quality of cake production, as this would reposition the cake industry to gain International recognition.
She also rolled out standards and certification initiatives to promote sustainable growth of the cake industry, noting that despite being technical documents that state the requirement for adjusting quality and ensuring the protection of lives, standards are also necessary instruments for facilitating fair trade across borders, thereby enhancing competitiveness for sustainable economic development.
Ewuzie said standards remain the backbone for industrial and economic development of any country that create link between the consumer and products.
“In product certification, goods are verified to ascertain that it conforms to the requirement stipulated in the relevant specifications or standards.”
The President of NACSP, Tosan Jemide, who spoke at the conference said the cake industry is a multi-billion naira business that needs to be harnessed through collaborative engagement.
He emphasised the need to ensure consistency and competence by cake bakers, especially in the use of raw materials.
“There is a huge increase in the number of consumers for the products that come out of this industry. Cakes, desserts and pastries are consumed in large quantities daily. The supply and sales of unwholesome materials endanger the health of consumers and impair the overall quality of the finished goods.
Jemide stated that the association is newly formed and it’s basically an association that is looking at ensuring that standards are met in the cake industry. There are no regulation currently taking place in the industry, bakers bake what they want, all those other suppliers in the industry in the entire chain are not really regulated.
“There are really no standards, there are no consistency. You can buy a product today it’s good, tomorrow you can buy that same product and is bad. All these things affect the quality of the products we make and there are issues with health and safety for the public.
He behooves professionals to ensure that the quality of it theor inputs remain wholesome in order for them to churn out good and quality finished products. On several occasions, we have encountered cases of substandard products. Sometimes inedible items are passed off as edible.
“We don’t want stories of someone baking a red velvet cake, and they bought red colouring, the consumer consumes that cake, they were peeing red blood and all sorts of stories. We are saying, we want to come together all the stakeholders to begin to regulate the space, let everyone understand that we the bakers will only accept a certain quality of products and we go into the market and we find out that you supplied or are selling adulterated stuffs, we call NAFDAC or we call you out on social media. So we are just trying to make sure that there are some sort of regulation in the industry.
Jemide said there is non availability of cake flour in Nigeria and Cassava flour which was research, has conflicting opinion about it usage.Another challenge with Cassava flour and also that I find to be quite worrisome is that, cassava flour is not exactly cheap. So even as expensive as Wheat flour is, now if I want to buy Cassava flour gram by gram, it’s more expensive than Wheat flour so it probably has to do with economy of scale. The people who are producing Cassava flour are not doing it at a large scale and they can’t afford to bring the price down but even right now Cassava flour isn’t beneficial in terms of pricing, so I think the government at some point tried to intervene but I don’t think it was an initiative that they looked at completely when they started it, the trials weren’t 100 percent proven, we were there at some of the trials. The products that we tried out at that time were not acceptable by consumers but I think all in a way to drive the sense of “we are doing something,or trying to bring in Cassava flour because of importation cost.and Government has to be involved.If the government fails to intervene in the operational challenges of its members then the price of the products would continue to hike.
Also, Director Food Safety and Applied Nutrition Directorate, Mrs Eva Edward,who represented by the Deputy Director Mr. Dauda Jimoh, presented a paper on the principles of Food Safety and Good Hygiene.
Dauda said NAFDAC has requirements for edibles,the commission condemns sales of unlabeled food products, working naked in the factory among others requirements.
“We may not be able to identify inedible products, but we call on the public to assist us if any enterprise dealing in such is found.”