Why the Global Harmonization Initiative ?

In an attempt to eliminate hurdles and impediments to scientific advancement in food technology, a network of scientific organizations and individual scientists has launched a global initiative to promote harmonization of food safety regulations and legislation. GHI's objectives are to facilitate discussion, globally, of the scientific issues that buttress the decisions made by individual governments and international regulatory bodies in order to achieve scientific consensuses on such issues. The Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI) and its Working Group anticipate that elimination of regulatory differences will make it more attractive for the private sector to invest in food safety and R&D, consequently strengthening the competitiveness of each nation's food industry and of the industries supplying the food sector. Harmonizing global regulations will aid in the uptake and application of new technologies as well as encourage the food industry to invest in technologies to ensure the safety and quality of the food supply for consumers.

Drivers for Global Harmonization of Food Safety Legislation

There is no question that the more the avenues of global trade widen, the higher the probability of “traffic jams” in worldwide commerce. Barriers to trade in the form of differing—and sometimes, conflicting—country-by-country import/export rules and requirements, can and do make it difficult for food businesses to get traction in overseas markets. Food safety concerns are frequently cited by individual nations as underpinning the justification for their legislative acts and rulemaking—and for erecting trade barriers and other measures that have the impact of curtailing free trade. Unfortunately, in some cases, the science used to inform and bolster food safety policymaking is insufficient, inconsistent or contradictory, creating a roadblock to the promulgation of laws that have a clear and evident benefit to protecting public health. Differences between countries in food safety regulations and laws also trigger a red light to the advances offered by science and technology. Though many food companies throughout the world have contributed significantly to research and development (R&D) efforts and costs of food safety technology, industry is understandably hesitant to apply newly-developed capabilities on an international scale in an uncertain, maze-like regulatory environment.

Goals

With support and participation of its individual members and member organizations, the GHI's Working Group has conducted a series of meetings at which members have formulated approaches to critically (re-)evaluate the scientific evidence used to underpin existing global regulations in the areas of product composition, processing operations, and technologies or measures designed to prevent foodborne illness.

The group is working on :

• Identifying additional scientific organizations from all over the world to be invited to join the Initiative as member organizations
• Identifying individual food scientists, technologists and engineers, working in academia, food companies, institutes and scientific organizations, to be invited to join as individual scientific members
• Creating a position paper identifying and explaining the relevant issues affecting the global food industry
• Developing a strategy to find the shortest route to achieving global harmonization in concert with international standard-setting bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that are working on similar efforts.
• Developing a constitution and by laws

Inaugural Meeting

The inaugural meeting of the Global Harmonization Working Group was held on July 16, 2004 in Las Vegas , Nevada , in conjunction with the IFT Annual Convention. The purpose of the meeting was to create a working group to focus on achieving harmonization of global food safety regulations. The meeting was convened and organized by IFT's International and Non-thermal Processing Divisions. The meeting was chaired by Huub Lelieveld, incoming chair of the International Division. The co-chair was Prof. Dr. Heinz-Dieter Isengard, current chair of the Division.

Click here for the relevant document.

Constitution

The GHI is a registered organisation under Austrian law. The constitution (in German) can be downloaded here. In 2007, GHI has been registered in Vienna, Austria. To comply with Austrian law, the GHI Charter has been converted to a constitution (German: "Vereinsstatuten") and been expanded as needed to comply with the Law. The English translation can be found here.