The safety of food products that fall into the consumer’s basket from the shelves of stores and retail outlets is the most important issue that requires special attention and radical measures. Despite the fact that huge efforts are spent to control the quality of food products and their compliance with legal requirements, today we can still find an expired product on the shelves of stores and retail outlets, a product that violates the requirements for labeling or their storage, as well as requirements for information about the product or manufacturer. To improve the effectiveness of activities in this direction, in Tajikistan on the national level, in 2013 was established a Coordinating Council on Food Safety. This is a structure that unites state bodies and departments, as well as representatives of civil society working in the field of consumer protection and food safety. The Consumers Union of Tajikistan (CU), as a member of this Council, within the framework of its activities, took the initiative to carry out public monitoring of food products.
For greater strength of the public monitoring food products process, the CU decided to attract active youth from among the residents of the capital.
Thus, was created the volunteer movement/network “We are for safe food!”. The network involves 25 people among the students of universities and 10-11 grades pupils. Taking into account that it is impossible to send young, inexperienced people to the “front line” (monitoring), on April 5, 2021, the Consumer Union of Tajikistan organized a training event for members of the volunteer movement. The training was aimed at raising awareness and developing skills to identify food deficiencies. The training covered such topics as the basics of consumer protection, monitoring methods, aspects that require special attention during monitoring, as well as methods of legal self-defense of the consumer.
in the training as a trainers were also invited Representatives of the Tajikstandart Agency and the Sanitary and Epidemiological Service under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Tajikistan. Representatives of each of the departments provided the participants with comprehensive information on various aspects of food monitoring. The training lasted more than 6 hours. At the event, the volunteers, in addition to theoretical knowledge, were also presented with practical skills for self-monitoring of food. Now, based on the results of the training, a network of volunteers under the guidance of the CU specialists will develop a plan for monitoring food outlets and directly begin the monitoring process, the results of which will also be presented to the readers of the site www.istemol.tj
We believe that the network of volunteers “We are for safe food!” will make a huge contribution to warning consumers of the capital against low-quality food.