Milk quality and safety improvement in Ethiopia

This created windows of opportunity for SNV BRIDGE project which designed a food safety strategy to support the government regulatory bodies effort in ensuring milk quality and safety. The project has initiated campaign approach and supported the implementation of Oromia region milk regulation implementation which was piloted in Selale milk shade in 2022. The project supported the enforcement of the regulation through technical training of milk quality inspectors and milk quality testing equipment like lactoscans support. After the implementation of the regulation in Selale milk shade, water adulteration dropped from as high as 35% to zero, fat removal stopped, illegal milk traders regulated, and investment by processors and cooperatives on cold chain increased.

This experience is now under scale up to other parts of the country. SNV BRIDGE+ has also developed an implementation strategy and is implementing activities to address the milk safety issues such as unhygienic milk handling, antibiotic residues and aflatoxin issues. In general, BRIDGE+ has focused in supporting the milk supply chain regulation and capacitating value chain actors such as dairy farmers, cooperatives and processors on system compliance (GHP, GMP, HACCP and ISOs) to improve the quality and safety of milk and milk products accessed by consumers.