INTRODUCTION

1. The Fifth Meeting of the ASEAN Cocoa Club Technical Working Group on Food Safety (ACC TWGFS) was held on 21st May 2013 in Novotel Saigon Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

2. The Meeting was attended by 18 ACC TWGFS members and observers from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam.  The list of delegates appears as Annex I.

WELCOMING REMARKS

3. The Meeting was officially opened by Dr. Nguyen Van Hoa, Deputy Director of Crop Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Viet Nam.  He extended a warm welcome to all delegates from the ASEAN Member Countries to the 5th Meeting of the ACC TWGFS.  The full text of his speech appears as Annex II.

AGENDA ITEM 1: OPENING REMARKS

4. The Chairperson of the ACC TWGFS, Dr. Sabariah Samsudin, Director of Chemistry and Technology Division, Malaysian Cocoa Board (MCB) expressed her gratitude and appreciation to the Government of Viet Nam for hosting the Fifth Meeting of the ACC TWGFS and the World Wise Joint Stock Corporation for their kind sponsorship on this meeting.

5. She also welcomed and thanked the delegates from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam for attending the Meeting.

6. In her opening remarks, she informed that the TWGFS has successfully developed a database portal to share information pertaining to food safety issues among member countries.   Full commitment from the members to upload all the necessary data is required.  Harmonization of food safety requirement is identified as an important enabler.  The full text of her speech appears as Annex III.

AGENDA ITEM 2: ELECTION OF VICE-CHAIRMAN

7. Dr. Ha Thuy Hanh, Deputy Director, National Agriculture Extension Center (NAEC), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) was unanimously elected as the Vice-Chairperson of the Fifth Meeting of the ACC TWGFS.

AGENDA ITEM 3: ADOPTION OF AGENDA

8. The Meeting adopted the Agenda for the Fifth Meeting of the ACC TWGFS with the amendment proposed by Philippines to include International Standard Organization (ISO) TC 34 in Agenda 11: Other Matters as appears in Annex IV.

AGENDA ITEM 4: BUSINESS ARRANGEMENTS

9. The Meeting was held in plenary.

AGENDA ITEM 5: REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE COUNTRY’S INITIATIVES RELATIVE TO FOOD SAFETY ON COCOA AND COCOA PRODUCTS AND RELATED ACTIVITIES

10. Indonesia reported that they are continuing to monitor the pesticide residues and cadmium in cocoa beans.  Indonesia hopes to report on the progress of the monitoring in the coming meeting. 

11. Indonesia informed the Meeting on the existence of ASEAN Food Testing Laboratory Committee.  This committee is established under the ASEAN Consultative Committee on Standard and Quality-Prepared Foodstuff Product Working Group (ACCSQ-PFPWG).  The list of the Reference Laboratories established under ASEAN Food Testing Laboratory Committee appears as Annex V.

12. Malaysia reported that no progress (status quo) on the drafting of the Malaysian Standard (MS) for Chocolate and Chocolate Products-Sampling and Test Methods, and informed the Meeting on the current available Malaysian Standard (MS).  The list of the Malaysia Standard (MS) appears as Annex VI.

13.Philippines reported on the monitoring of Ochratoxin A (OTA) in Philippines cocoa beans and cocoa products, and the Pilot Testing of a Traceability System for Philippines Cacao Beans Project (Phase 2):2012.  The full reports appear in Annex VIIand Annex VIII respectively.

14. Viet Nam informed the Meeting that there are 14 provinces involved actively in planting of cocoa with the assistance from Cargill support training on the UTZ sustainable cocoa farming.

AGENDA ITEM 6: STATUS REPORT ON THE FOOD SAFETY REQUIREMENTS IMPOSED BY IMPORTING COUNTRIES

15. Indonesia informed the Meeting on the outcome of the International Workshop on Cadmium in Cocoa and Chocolate Products which was held in London on 3-4 May 2012.   

16. The main objectives of the workshop were:

• To support cocoa producing countries and the cocoa and chocolate industry in gathering sufficient information on cadmium presence and to send it in the right format to European Commission Directorate-general for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO);
• To assess whether there was sufficient evidence to justify the need to establish maximum levels for cadmium in cocoa and chocolate products;
• To ensure that, if required, residue limits would be established at fair and achievable levels within a suitable transition period; and
• To enhance the knowledge and dialogue between all the stakeholders on health issues related to cadmium and to review the trade implications.

17. Malaysia expressed concern on the cadmium content of beans produced by ASEAN Member Countries (AMCs) particularly Indonesia since Indonesia is one of the largest bean producers.  Malaysia requested AMCs to put efforts to reduce the risk of cadmium contamination in the cocoa beans.

18. The ACC TWGFS recommends to the ACC TWGGAP to emphasize in the draft GAP measures to reduce cadmium contamination at the farm level.

AGENDA 7: REPORT ON THE ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE RELATED TO FOOD SAFETY

19. Philippines requested the AMCs to report the progress on the monitoring of cadmium in cocoa and chocolate products in the next meeting.

AGENDA 8:  STATUS REPORT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DATABASE ON FOOD SAFETY

20. The Secretariat of the ACC TWGFS requested Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand to summit their URL address of the food safety website which can be hyperlinked from the ACC TWGFS immediately.

21. Philippines and Thailand will provide the URL address to the Secretariat.  Indonesia also inquired whether the ACC TWGFS website can be hyperlinked to ASEAN Secretariat website.

22. The Secretariat of the ACC TWGFS informed that the list of active ingredients for the pesticide residues in the database has been expanded based on the Table of Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) for Cacao Beans established by the Japan Food Chemical Research Foundation.  For those active ingredients of pesticide residues which are not in the current list but wish to include into the database, the Secretariat requested the person in-charge from the ASEAN Member Countries to inform the Secretariat.

23. The Secretariat of the ACC TWGFS informed the Meeting that the manual for uploading the food regulations/standards related to cocoa and cocoa products has been developed and available for the AMCs to upload their regulations/standards.

24. Malaysia had updated the profile of pesticide residues namely ametryn, chlorpyrifos and propoxur for cocoa beans as well as heavy metals namely cadmium and lead for cocoa beans.

25. Philippines will upload the additional data on pesticide residues, new data on OTA, microbiological data and heavy metals into the ACC TWGFS website.

26. Thailand will upload the data of pesticide residues into the ACC TWGFS website.

27. The Chairperson urged the other AMCs to upload the database on food safety into the website.

AGENDA 9: KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE SHARING ON TESTING METHODOLOGIES

28. Philippines informed the Meeting on the validated method of testing OTA in cocoa beans and products using AOAC 2004.10 OTA in green coffee.

29. Indonesia informed Philippines to look into the method of testing OTA in cocoa beans and cocoa products in using British Standard (BS) EN 14132.2009 (Foodstuffs Determination of OTA in barley and roasted coffee using HPLC method with immunoaffinity column clean-up).

 
AGENDA 10: HARMONIZATION ON THE FOOD SAFETY REQUIREMENTS OF THE ASEAN MEMBER COUNTRIES

30. Philippines as the lead country of the electronic Working Group (eWG) reported on the ASEAN Code of Practice (CoP) for the Prevention and Reduction of OTA Cacao Beans.  The full CoP appeared in Annex IX.  

31. Philippines informed that the Codex Committee on Contaminants in Foods (CCCF) agreed to forward the Proposed Draft Code of Practice for the Prevention and Reduction of OTA Contamination in Cocoa to Step 5/8 for adoption by the 36th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) in July 2013.

32. Malaysia inquired on the differences between the CoP developed by ASEAN and CODEX.  Philippines informed that the main difference between the two CoP is on the roasting protocol and the fermentation process.

33. Philippines suggested the ASEAN CoP to be reviewed and commented by the AMCs before forwarded to the ASEAN Cocoa Club (ACC) Meeting for adoption.  The given timeframe to work on this draft is one year.  The proposed date for submitting the comments are as follows:

• July 2013 – 2nd Draft
• August 2013 – 3rd Draft
• November 2013 – 4th Draft
• March 2014 – Finalization of the CoP

The AMCs are requested to summit the comments to Philippines and made a copy to the Secretariat of the ACC TWGFS.

34. Malaysia proposed that the final draft of the CoP to be discussed separately back to back to the next TWGFS Meeting.

35. Malaysia requested that the same representatives need to be present in the development of CoP to ensure continuity of the work progress.  Philippines supported the recommendation.

36. Cambodia proposed that the initiatives to develop a harmonized ASEAN Code of Practice (CoP) for the Prevention and Reduction of OTA Cacao Beans should also be reported to TWG on ASEAN GAP and the ASEAN Sectoral Working Group on Crops (ASWG).

AGENDA 11: Other Matters

37. Philippines inquired whether AMCs provided input to the ISO/DIS 2451 on Cocoa Beans Specification which is being requested for comments by 21 June 2013.  Most of the AMCs are not aware on this matter.  Philippines had distributed the ISO/ DIS 2451 document to the AMCs.

38. The Chairperson informed the Meeting on the change of membership for Malaysia.  Ms. Sam Sang Lan is replacing Mr. Lee Beng Hock as the technical member of the ACC TWGFS.

39. The Chairperson informed that the Malaysian International Cocoa Conference 2013 and Malaysian International Cocoa Dinner 2013 will be held on 7-8 October 2013 and 7 October 2013 respectively in Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur.

AGENDA 12: ADOPTION OF THE REPORT

40. The Meeting unanimously adopted the Report of the Fifth Meeting of the ASEAN Cocoa Club Technical Working Group on Food Safety (ACC TWGFS) held on 21st  May 2013 in Novotel Saigon Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

41. The Chairperson of the ACC TWGFS expressed her gratitude and thanks to all delegates for their active participation in the Meeting.

42. The delegation of Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Viet Nam expressed their sincere appreciation to the government of Viet Nam for their hospitality accorded to them and the excellent arrangements made for the Meeting. 

43. The Meeting was held in the traditional spirit of ASEAN cordiality and solidarity.

Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
21st May 2013