As the world was celebrating the World Food Safety Day, under the theme “Food safety, everyone’s business”, it was noted that food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, producers and consumers; everybody has a role to play from farm to table to ensure the food we consume is safe and will not cause harm to our health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that Lack of adequate food hygiene can lead to foodborne diseases and death of the consumer; children being the most vulnerable to these diseases, whereby per year numbers about 125 thousand children death.
KCP Ltd has been working in Ruhango district, the Southern province, for now eight years and distributes its products throughout the whole country.
Mbabazi Christian, the Chief Executive Officer of KCP Ltd in an interview with IGIHE, said that the company is on a good track, receiving raw products from farmers from five different districts in the Southern Province, with branches in the eastern province in Bugesera district and there two have started working in partnership with farmers in the area.
“We have the capacity to receive about 120 tons of raw product from farmers per day. We have expanded from the Southern to the Eastern province and are encouraging every area of the country to have cassava plantations and become our suppliers. The factory work at only 35% of its installed capacity.”
{{How is the quality?}}
While talking about the quality, Mbabazi said that the government has greatly contributed in bringing quality product, among which was the introduction the Rwanda Standard Board (RSB) that has played a great role in providing internationally recognized and customer suited standardization services.
“The RSB and other companies work in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry; they can penalize you if you are ever found selling product that are not up to the quality standard.” He said
“There are many other companies that are working in cassava flour processing. But Kinazi remains the market giants.”
There is a risk exposition to people consuming bad quality products
Mbabazi said that people should be more careful as they purchase their flour; they need to see if their products are certified by the RSB.
“We do what we have to do as a company nationwide, this starts from the factory; we have a team that examines each of our products before distribution to make sure that they are all up to the quality standard. We ask of the people that consume our products to be aware because if they are not careful they might easily consume bad quality products that can have bad consequences on their health.”
Though they have not been identified yet, there are people abroad who are said to be selling Kinazi cassava flour but have it repackaged as their own product and sell at a very high price.
KCP Ltd Quality controller, Viateur Ngabonzima said that the company has standards by which they examine the cleanness of their productions starting for the staff member, to the machines used in processing among other things.
“Kinazi cassava flour has been certified by the RSB. It was also accredited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, thus has been allowed on the US market,” he said.
The Kinazi factory currently has a market in Rwanda and on the European continent; exports are at more than 40%, where they plan to expand to the United States because there is a large market.
The company says that its flour is not only made of bread but also can be mixed with other flour and made into Cake, Capati, Pizza among others.
