During the final meeting held at the headquarters of the National Service for Food Safety and Quality (Senasa) in Buenos Aires, the European auditors expressed their satisfaction with the controls and the certification system carried out by Senasa.
The meeting was attended by the president of Senasa, Ricardo Negri, the vice president, Guillermo Rossi, the national director of Plant Protection, Diego Quiroga, the directors of Safety and Quality of Products of Plant Origin, Alejandro Fernández, of Laboratorio Vegetal, Jorge Kempny and the coordinator of International Relations, Miguel Donatelli.
From May 6 to 16, European inspectors audited the controls carried out by Senasa in the province of Córdoba to ensure that the consignments sent to that destination are within the tolerances established by the European Union.
The verification included visits to 4 establishments authorized to process and export to this destination and 3 laboratories registered and authorized by Senasa, which are responsible for sampling, analysis and certification of aflatoxin content, which are a type of toxin produced by toxigenic strains of fungi in agricultural crops such as corn, peanuts, cottonseed and nuts with hard shells such as walnuts. Aflatoxins are frequently isolated from foods such as corn, rice and peanuts that have been poorly handled post-harvest.
“The EU delegation considers that the Argentine control system for this product is very complete and very good. For us, the audit was very positive. We will continue to jointly evaluate recommendations to continue improving certain issues within the control process.”, explained Fernandez.
“Argentina is the main exporter to the European Union, which is why they place special emphasis on verifying the entire process of production, processing, transportation and export of Argentine peanuts. Argentina always works to produce safe food.", the Senasa official stressed.
Facts & figures
Argentina produces 1.100.000 tons of peanuts per year, and 85% of production is in Córdoba. It should be noted that Argentina exports around 370.000 tons of peanuts to the EU.
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