Webinar – Transforming Commodities into Products

By Shivam Garg

ON 28 JULY, THE UK INDIA BUSINESS COUNCIL (UKIBC), IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BSI GROUP, HELD AN EXCELLENT WEBINAR ADDRESSING SUSTAINABILITY AND CONSUMERS’ CONFIDENCE BUILDING PRACTICES.

UKIBC’s Food and Drink lead Shubhi Mishra moderated the session alongside UKIBC’s Events consultant Kadambari Bose. The two were joined by a panel of industry experts – David Horlock, Managing Director, Global Food and Retail Supply Chain, BSI Group; Richard Werran, UK, Eire, Continental Europe and IMETA Regional Director – Food and Retail Supply Chain, BSI Group; Namrata Khanna, Director, India Honey Alliance; and Azhar Tambuwala, Director, Sahyadri Farms.

Examining best practice standards for food and drink business governance, and sustainability and environment, David shared vital factors for: supporting processing and labelling; land environment production; and supply chain ethics.

Azhar followed by introducing Sahyadri Farms as the largest Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) in India and spoke largely about the standards and certifications Sahyadri Farms incorporates to gain consumer confidence. The Producer Company ensures fair equity to everyone, while providing value to the end consumer to deliver safe, hygienic, and healthy food.

Having both backward and forward integration, Sahyadri Farms secures the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in accordance with industry regulations, provincial laws, and even with the company’s own standards of transparency and traceability for running the business through the value chain.

Namrata introduced Indian Honey Alliance (IHA) and added that it represents nearly 90% of India’s overall honey industry and works as an all-inclusive alliance of stakeholders. She spoke about the efforts being put in by IHA members and wider stakeholders to maintain consumer confidence and to ensure sustainability with the genuineness of the product being maintained.

There is a need to embrace the integration of standards and certificates, in the likes of BSI, to overcome the challenges faced by the industry through the supply chain. IHA works closely with international experts to promote science-based quality standards for Indian honey, alongside absorbing best practices of sourcing, testing, and packaging to make certain that Indian honey becomes the preferred choice in the global market.

Richard from BSI Group presented on the possible solution to the global challenges showcasing the standards, training, testing, and assessment services by BSI Group in India. Richard then addressed the proven success of adopting the BSI Kitemark. He also shared a case study on how the Scottish Bee company developed a standard for their customer promise, put a Global Food Safety Initiative Quality System in place, and a Trustmark like BSI Kitemark to grow sales by 300%.

With both the UK and India’s commitments to reduce their carbon footprints by the end of the decade, this webinar came at an opportune time as we delve into the new evolving megatrends on social and environmental sustainability.

Many thanks to our exceptional speakers for providing their time and resources for this webinar. If you were unable to join our session on the day, or would like to go through the webcast again, we invite you to watch the webinar below for the discussion in full.

If you have further questions, please write to Shubhi Mishra at shubhi.mishra@ukibc.com


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