NAFDAC said over 70 per cent of food exports from Nigeria are rejected abroad.
The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mojisola Adeyeye, has said non-compliance with advisory guidelines is one of the reasons Nigerian food products are rejected in the United Kingdom (UK).
Mrs Adeyeye, while speaking at a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, said the unwillingness of exporters to comply with minimal sanitary measures also contributes to products being rejected.
She, however, said the agency held a scheduled side event with the UK Food Standard Agency (FSA) in order to change the narrative on the incidence of rejection of Nigerian food products in the international market.
She said the agency also engaged the FSA on the non-notifications of such rejects and non-engagement of the agency on the matter.
She highlighted the need for mutual recognition of electronic certification of both government agencies of export certification, among others.
"The challenges bedeviling the export process of NAFDAC regulated products especially, assuring safety and quality status of food exports in Nigeria has been traced to non-compliance with advisory guidelines established by NAFDAC to encourage participatory exports," she said.
She said almost all exported food products are processed without the statutory testing by NAFDAC. "Therefore, it is not surprising that all the items exported without NAFDAC quality control and safety tests are rejected."
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Addressing challenges
The agency noted that as an outcome of its meeting with FSA, it would begin six regulatory-measure approaches to address the situation.
Mrs Adeyeye said no patriot should export any NAFDAC-regulated product without it passing through the agency and being certified of its safety and quality status including full compliance with the destination country government requirements.
She said is key to averting colossal economic loss resulting from the rejection of non-compliant exports by the trading partners.
NAFDAC had earlier in the year said over 70 per cent of food exports from Nigeria are rejected abroad.
The agency said the deplorable state of the process for facilitating export trade of regulated products has continued to be a serious cause for concern.
