Dairy stakeholders call for clearer standards and labels
A national roundtable in Nigeria brought together officials and industry representatives to discuss product standards, classification and labelling in the dairy sector. The meeting was convened by the Danish Dairy Board, the Royal Danish Consulate-General and Dairy Business Partners in connection with World Food Day.
Those attending included Idi Mukhtar Maiha, the minister of livestock development, alongside representatives of the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Lagos State and the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency. Dairy companies and other sector participants also took part.
Mr Maiha said Nigeria’s dairy industry could contribute to food and nutrition security, rural development, employment, livelihoods, industrial expansion and the broader economy. He said achieving that potential would require not only higher domestic milk production but also a regulatory system that supports product safety, consumer protection, investment and competition.
“Clear and consistent standards are necessary to help consumers understand the products they purchase and ensure that producers, processors, importers and distributors operate under predictable regulatory requirements,” Mr Maiha said. He also referred to counterfeit and substandard goods in medicines and veterinary products, saying that these concerns made effective regulation and quality assurance relevant to both public and animal health.
Lars Jensen, a senior project manager at the Danish Dairy Board, said consumer awareness depended on cooperation among organisations with different sources of finance, technical expertise and local knowledge. He said accurate labelling should identify a product’s ingredients and nutritional content, distinguish among product categories and help consumers make choices according to their needs and purchasing power.
Discussions at the meeting addressed coordination among bodies responsible for food safety, product standards, livestock development and public health. Participants linked closer coordination with reducing uncertainty for businesses, improving implementation of rules and providing consumers with reliable information about dairy products.
Chinyere Ikejiofor, NAFDAC’s head of nutrition, food safety and applied nutrition, said labels must not mislead consumers or create uncertainty about a product’s nature, composition or characteristics. She said Nigeria’s rules for pre-packaged foods require labels to state the product’s proper name and description, list ingredients by descending weight, and provide production and expiry or best-before dates, storage conditions, manufacturer details, country of origin and a batch or identification number. Nutritional information is also required under NAFDAC’s current framework.
The roundtable also highlighted continuing engagement between government and the dairy industry on regulatory issues affecting production, imports, marketing and consumption. Participants said the discussions were intended to support clearer requirements across the sector and more consistent information for consumers.
