(Commonwealth)—Food manufacturers, agribusinesses, and hotels on Mauritius‘ Rodrigues Island have been widely trained on food safety practices acceptable in the international world in an attempt to drive the geographical region’s export market in addition to food safety.
Rodrigues is an autonomous island of Mauritius located about 600 kilometers off the eastern coast of the mainland island and covering a size of about 100 square kilometers and governed locally by the Rodrigues Regional Assembly. Rodrigues has an agricultural and fishing-based economy, with honey and salted fish, particularly octopus, as its primary export commodities. Given the island’s extreme isolation from other islands, ensuring secure and safe food production is a critical requirement.
The Commonwealth Secretariat has been collaborating with Mauritius’ Economic Development Board and Rodrigues Regional Assembly since 2023 on a long-term export and market development initiative. The initiative targets domestic market development, international trade competitiveness, and high-value export market access with particular emphasis on the Mauritian diaspora and high-value food markets. Through enhancing food safety practices, the initiative allows local businesses to access high-level international standards required for international trade.
The introduction of a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) training initiative by Polytechnics Mauritius was a key component of the project. HACCP is a globally used scheme of control and identification of food safety hazards at all levels during the manufacturing process. Training was launched with a technical workshop and follow-up visits to six small and medium-sized food businesses. The tours gave expert guidance on how the operations could be streamlined so that the practices of all the companies could be harmonized according to international food safety practices.
Nature’s Spells Limited, a producer of herbal teas and medicinal plant products, was one of the companies on the tour. The company obtained a comprehensive food safety audit that pointed out the most critical areas that require procedures to be modified and maintained in compliance with HACCP rules. The other companies’ divisions, such as honey producers and seafood packers, also obtained explicit recommendations for the enhancement of hygiene, handling, and monitoring procedures required in shipping quality and safe products.
Training was modified from business auditing to three days of training on food safety basics. The nineteen trainees in the various industries attended the session, which employed group work and case study as a sound way of exposing HACCP principles. Training gave the participants knowledge and skills to begin incorporating food safety practices within their companies to satisfy foreign buyers’ demands.
As part of building technical capacity, the project provided additional broad support to improve the competitiveness of Rodrigues’ food sector. A previous in-the-year train-the-trainer HACCP implementation training had also been funded by the Commonwealth Secretariat. Experts conducted on-site visits to local companies, observing production lines and providing recommendations for optimal practices. The project team also assisted in branding, packaging, and setting up product standards to make Rodrigues products not only compliant with safety regulations but also attractive to overseas markets.
In total, these activities have strengthened Rodrigues’s food safety climate, which provides a solid basis for agriculture and tourism sustainable development. By linking Rodrigues businesses with global best practices, the project is assuring food security on the island, access to export markets, and consumer and trading partners’ confidence.
With the world markets continuing to call for better quality food products that are safe, this ability to construct Rodrigues’s building and infrastructure potential is an achievement in sustainable economic development. The project shows how the Commonwealth Secretariat helps its member countries improve their trade skills, build innovation, and access global markets, so small island economies can compete fairly in a more connected world.
