Safeguarding Africa’s dairy future: Food safety, quality, and compliance at the forefront

KENYA – Food safety has been identified as a shared responsibility, with farmers, processors, and regulators all embedding best practices to ensure consumer trust, competitiveness, and long-term sustainability of the dairy sector.

At the Africa Dairy Innovations Summit, a panel on “Emerging Food Safety, Quality and Compliance Issues in the Dairy Industry – Tapping into Pan-African Partnerships and New Technologies” brought together industry leaders and regulators to address one of the sector’s most pressing challenges: ensuring safe, high-quality milk and dairy products in a rapidly evolving market.

They underscored that risks span the entire value chain—from cold chain breakdowns and microbial contamination to chemical residues and adulteration.

Technology was highlighted as a game-changer, with rapid testing kits, IoT monitoring, and affordable lab solutions enabling faster, cheaper, and more reliable quality checks.

Molly Abende of Dairyland opened the discussion by highlighting the critical risks facing the industry.

She pointed to global geopolitical disruptions that affect supply chains, stressing the need for redundancies and continuous risk assessment rather than annual reviews.

Within Africa, she emphasized cold chain integrity as the most persistent challenge, noting that any break in refrigeration compromises both safety and quality.

Her company has invested heavily in distribution centers, refrigerated trucks, and cold rooms to mitigate these risks.

Abende also underscored the importance of milk quality at the source, explaining that even when milk is available, it is unusable if it fails to meet safety specifications.

She called for greater industry ownership of food safety, urging cooperatives and processors to adopt best practices rather than relying solely on regulators.

George Kibet of the Kenya Dairy Board provided the regulator’s perspective, outlining microbial contamination, pesticide residues, antibiotics, and aflatoxins as major risks.

He explained that adulteration—such as diluting milk with unsafe water—remains a widespread issue.

Kibet emphasized that responsibility for safety is shared among farmers, processors, and regulators, and highlighted how technology is transforming compliance.

Rapid testing kits for antibiotics and aflatoxins now allow inspectors to make immediate decisions at collection points, while IoT systems can track milk parameters during transit.

He noted that Kenya is moving toward co-regulation, encouraging processors to self-check and rewarding excellence through certification schemes.

Updating regulations to include emerging dairy sources such as camel and goat milk is also underway, reflecting the sector’s diversification.

Boaz Ndisio of ProGnosis Biotech S.A. brought the solution provider’s lens, focusing on how technology can make testing faster, cheaper, and more accessible.

He recalled that aflatoxin tests once took over an hour, but now can deliver results in under two minutes. His company is working to provide affordable testing kits and small-scale labs for cooperatives, enabling farmers to verify milk quality at collection centers.

Ndisio stressed that rejection of milk should be seen not as punishment but as valuable information to improve practices.

He also described innovations in cleaning verification, such as rapid microbial detection systems that confirm whether equipment has been properly sanitized between batches.

For him, education is key: farmers must understand that what cows consume—whether contaminated feed or antibiotics—directly affects milk safety.

With demand for dairy rising across Africa, ensuring compliance and safety is not just a regulatory requirement—it is essential for consumer trust, market competitiveness, and the continent’s food security.

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