NAFDAC to enforce global listing scheme in December, warns supermarket operators

The Acting Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mrs. Yetunde Oni, has said the agency will commence the enforcement of the global listing scheme of supermarket items on the 31st  of December, 2016,  charging supermarket operators to ensure prompt compliance.

Oni, who made the statement during a meeting of stakeholders in Lagos, warned fast food chains, embassies and international organisations, who sell imported and unregistered products that all provisions of the global listing scheme will be “fully enforced” by December.

Stipulating the guidelines for the listing, she noted that products registered by the agency, products on the import prohibition list of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and mandatorily fortified food items will not be listed during the exercise.

She, however, said that listed imported items “can only be retailed and distributed within the supermarket chain” and that “supermarket operators can only register two products per 100 items imported.

“The quantity of each item to be imported into the country,” she said, “should not exceed 2500 cartons of a product per annum”.

Mrs. Oni also enjoined supermarket operators to patronise made-in-Nigeria products as the products compete favourably with their foreign counterparts.