(DG JRC/IPTS) - agrilife - Europa

ANNEX B - QUALITY ASSURANCE/SUSTAINABILITY LABELS AND
CERTIFICATION SCHEMES IN LATVIA
Overview of quality assurance/sustainability labels and certification schemes in Latvia
Data research format – Task 1.B
COUNTRY: LATVIA
EXPERTS: Daina Karklina
Inga Ciprovica
Agro- food industry is one of the largest Latvian industries. Availability of a great
range of agricultural and animal-breading products makes a great contribution to the
efficiency and quality of food industry.
Traditions of food industry in Latvia support usage of natural browning and
ecologically clean products. Technological processes are constantly improving thanks
to the co-operation with foreign companies, making food industry most efficient
Latvian industry according to the productivity of labor.
A safe and good quality product is the result of adequate control and quality assurance
in all stages of the supply chain by food chain players: farmers, food processors, food
distributors, food retails and food consumers and food chain influencers: government,
environmental organizations, industry associations etc. [5; 6; 29; 30; 31]
1. Quality assurance/ sustainability labels and certifications schemes in Latvia
A) Agro-food sector
B) Latvia
C) Quality Assurance Systems are part of the Quality Management focused on
providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled. They are required at
each step in food production chain to ensure safe and quality food to show compliance
with regulatory and customer requirements [10; 11; 12; 32; 33; 34; 35]
Latvian National System of Quality Assurance is shown in Figure 1.
This system has several coordination levels:
0 - Coordination in International level;
1 - Coordination in Government level;
2 - Quality assurance surveillance level;
3 - Quality assurance level;
4 - Conformity assessment level;
5 - Production level;
6 - Market level.
The Quality Assurance National Programme was accepted in 1994 as one of the
priority programmes for the development of the national economy of Latvia. The
objective of the programme is to develop legislation and infrastructure for conformity
assessment and quality assurance in Latvia according to the EU requirements. The
Quality Assurance National programme includes training in Quality Assurance and
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