Abstract

Relationship between certification and export in Moroccan food industry

Author(s): Yassine El Ammari, Anjoud Harmouzi, Abdelaziz Chaouch, Hassan Hadiri, Soukaina El Ammari

Placed among Moroccan WorldÂ’s Professions, national food industry has made significant progress in recent years which enable the country to cover a big part of internal needs. In addition, food companies have a vision to conquer international market through the export of their products. The impacts of export activity on companies and national economy are important. However, to attract and retain foreign customers, Moroccan company must provide guarantees about safety of food it produces. Those guarantees include third-party certification. This work aims to highlight the relationship between export and certification of Moroccan food companies based on results of a questionnaire sent to some of them in order to analyze constraints to food security in the Moroccan food industry. Outcome of this study show that exports increase was accompanied by an increase of certification number delivered to these companies. Also exporters are more likely to be certified then non exporting companies. We found that first certification, usually according to ISO 9001, is a step for the company to comply with other specific standards such as ISO 22000, BRC and IFS.