Digital Food Safety and Trade Services (DiFSATS)

WHY DIFSATS WAS ESTABLISHED

Digital Food Safety and Trade Services (Difsats) Limited is a private company established under the companies Act 2012. It was established to play a catalytic role in the digitization of food safety and SPS measures in Africa which are critical to achieve sustained compliance with regional and international standards required for market access.

The founding of Difsats is grounded in understanding that a digital revolution is currently taking place but there is a fear that Africa might be left behind by the rest of the world as it happened during the green revolution and Industrial revolution. Whereas Africa has been trying to keep place with digitalization in sectors like telecommunication, finance and banking, Insurance and to a little extent in trade, limited if any effort has been made in the areas of food safety, SPS and standardization. This poses a major challenge of market access by agri-food business operators in Africa because all innovations in food safety, SPS and Standardization being undertaken in relevant international for a such as IPPC, OiE, CODEX are promoting digitization to enhance cooperation in food safety and SPS control and management and standards compliance.

Therefore, Difsats comes to fill the gaps by developing and supporting the use of digital facilities and tools to improve the efficiency and outcomes of food safety management and control and initiatives in Africa.

VISION

Becoming a continental catalyzing Hub for the use of Digital facilities and tools to improve the efficiency and outcomes of food safety, SPS and standardization in ……….. in Africa for increased trade compliance, market access and consumer safety.

MISSION

To continuously identify the pain points; develop and support use of suitable digital innovations, facilities and tools to address challenges faced by the farmers, agro-food value chain actors, exporters and Importers, regulators and consumers in Uganda, across Africa regarding food safety, SPS measures and trade compliance.

HOW DIFSATS IS IMPROVING EFFICIENCY AND OUTCOMES OF FOOD SAFETY AND SPS MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL; AND STANDARDIZATION INITIATIVES.

1. Digitizing small holder dominated agro-food sector to streamline supply chains, enhance documentation and achieve traceability required by export markets
2. Digitizing food safety management system to control food hazards on routine basis in agro-food processing SMEs.
3. Digitizing food safety and SPS official controls of competent authorities to guarantee safety of products, improve confidence and trust of markets and consumers in official controls to promote equivalence and mutual recognition of inspection and certification system by trade partners
4. Digitizing cross border inspection, sampling and certification to promote risk-based controls, improve efficiency, reduce costs and delays in clearing of food traded across borders

OUR CORE VALUES

1. Honesty
2. Commitment to Serve
3. Professionalism
4. Transparency
5. Confidentiality

SCOPE OF WORK AND VALUE PREPOSITION

Difsats offers its core services in four service categories

1. Providing digital solutions for SPS and standards compliance which we offer by developing tools that help businesses comply with SPS measures. Our tools cover the following areas

• Digital Certification
• Traceability systems
• Risk assessment platforms

2. Supporting food safety monitoring by creating platforms real time monitoring of food safety standards including

• Temperature control
• Pest control
• Hygiene practices

3. Enhancing trade facilitation by building solutions that streamline cross border trade by simplifying:

• SPS documentation
• Inspections at the border
• Approvals

4. Facilitating capacity building by offering training and certification programs for farmers, agri-food value chain players, exporters and regulators on SPS measures, standards and best practices
5. Facilitating coordination collaboration and cooperation of actors and stakeholders building platforms for information sharing and exchange
6. Providing guidance and facilitating decision making by developing information repositories for understanding best practices, standards, compliance and risk assessment
7. Increasing efficiency of conformity assessment by developing platforms for enabling efficiency in inspection, verification, auditing, sampling, testing and certification of products by competent authorities

HOW WE DO OUR WORK

The core features of our work are categorized into four;

1. Building traceability systems by using blockchain or internet of Things (IoT) to track the products from farm to fork
2. Compliance management by providing the tools for food business to manage SPS documentation and audits and mandated regulatory bodies guarantee safety of food products under their jurisdiction to the market consumers
3. Data analysis by offering insights into food safety trends, risks and compliance levels.
4. Ensuring mobile accessibility of digital platforms created, and enabled via mobile devices to facilitate digital penetration in Uganda and across Africa
5. Enabling e-learning and e-certification by developing training and certification package to facilitate distance/remote training/learning and inspection, auditing/assessment and certification

PARTNERSHIPS (PARTNERS, CLIENTS, COLLABORATIONS) THAT WE SEEK TO IMPLEMENT THE ABOVE

We achieve the above through partnerships by collaborating with governments, ministries, departments and agencies, commodity-based organizations, private sector organizations, NGOs, regional bodies and international agencies to integrate our innovative platforms with existing systems.

As such, we therefore, continue to seek to work with Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives (MTIC) and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) and other relevant bodies such as EAC, SADC, COMESA, The African Union Commission and AfCFTA. We also seek to work with international organization such as FAO, WHO and WTO to align the digital platforms with International/global standards.

We collaborate with private sector, especially agri-food businesses, exporters, importers and food processors to pilot the digital solutions and NGOs and development partners to leverage funding and technical support organizations like World Bank, USAID, EU Africa Development Bank (ADB) and others leverage technology and innovations.

We leverage;

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) by using AI to predict food safety risks and optimizing food safety compliance
2. Blockchain by ensuring transparency and trust in food supply chain
3. Internet of Things by implementing sensors for real time monitoring of food storage and transportation conditions
4. Cloud computing by ensuring scalability of our innovative platforms across Africa

Our current focus is on building platforms for;

1. SPS Compliance and certification
2. Traceability systems for food supply chain
3. A trade facilitation tool for exporters to meet SPS requirements
4. A training and capacity building platform for food safety standards

Our domain knowledge that we leverage on;

1. Food Safety and SPS measures: We have deep understanding of food safety standards, SPS measures and trade regulations
2. Agriculture value chain: We have extensive knowledge of how food moves from farm to fork including food safety, plant health and animal health challenges at each node and the stakeholders involved
3. Regional and International trade: We are highly familiar with trade agreements with AfCFTA, EAC, WTO and their impact on SPS measures

HOW TO WORK WITH US

We can collaborate with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), private sector organization and development partners to provide simplification solutions to enable farmers, agri-food value chains actors, exporters and importers implement best practices and achieve trade compliance.

We can partner with MDAs to develop traceability, inspection and certification simplification solutions.

We can support individual businesses with tools to enhance efficiency and outcomes of food safety, SPS and standards implementation initiatives.

We are developing our own tools that can be supported to enhance efficiency in food safety, SPS and standards in implementation on under scale.

Please contact us for a discussion on how we can help to add value in your food safety, SPS and standards implementation endeavors.