MeSTI - SME Food processors and Food exporters' right choice

MeSTI (Makanan Selamat Tanggungjawab Industri) is a Food Safety programme that fulfill the basic requirements stated at 2009 Food Hygiene Regulations.  Under Reg 9, food processors (Third Schedule: All food premises involved in the manufacturing of food) should establish and practise a Food Safety Assurance programme.  And MeSTI is much more suitable for Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Food processors. 

Have you ever saw Food Safety Assurance programme such as FSSC22000, ISO22000, HACCP, GMP etc etc somewhere, sometimes?  There are products in the market which labelled with the certification's logo.  What does it mean? Owning the certification brings you many benefits includes

1. Minimize the occurrence of Food poisoning  
2. Increase food processor's image in either domestic or global market
3. Comply local or importer's Food Safety legislation
4. Reducing production cost in terms of wastage and food recall
5. Develop and improve customer's confidence on the product.

and many more.  If you notice, food processors that owns the above-said Food Safety Assurance programmes are mostly established companies.  The food processor might already have departments such as Production, Store, Quality Control, Laboratory, Maintenance, and so on in their organization. Yes, only big organization is able to handle the document-oriented programme.  Many checking, inspections, document updates, food safety solution findings have to be done daily to maintain the programme.  Few years ago, Ministry of Health (MOH) started to incurr few thousand ringgit every year for the application & maintainence of GMP and HACCP.  So, it is become more difficult for SMEs to practise such programme. 

So, how does the SME food processors could comply Reg 9? Here comes MeSTI, a very good alternative for the applicants.  First of all, application of MeSTI certification in MOH is FREE.   by practising MeSTI, food processors comply Reg 9 as well as to increase the confidence of the Public and Importers against their products.  Owning a proper documented food safety system also help to reducing the cost of wastage and recalls and indirectly increase company profits. 

We have been helping SMEs to apply MeSTI.  Our customers are Edible Ice processors, Noodles processor and Bird Nest Processor.  Along the application process, what we appreciate that is our customers know their processing, strength and weaknesses (rooms for improvement) better. Audits from us (as a Service provider) and from MOH help them to improve their food safety concerns on products.  We saw satisfaction on their faces after obtaining MeSTI certificates.  

If you have the capacity (running a processing factory or a packer) to apply MeSTI, let's go for it.  If you have NO TIME to study the know-how, no worries.  We are ready to 

1) develop manual for you

2) provide training for you and/or your staff

3) coordinate between you and MOH auditors upon the MeSTI application.  

with a reasonable price.  If this is what you need, do contact me today.

For your information.  If you are processor in Sabah, you ought to obtain MeSTI before you can go for HALAL application, which you could penetrate a bigger market in Malaysia or abroad! 

That is all for today. I will share about matters you need to prepare for MeSTI system in my next blog. Stay tune!