Today on World Accreditation Day, the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB) is calling on businesses to employ accredited services to test, inspect, verify or certify their products or services.
When manufacturing a product, a business will hire a company to make sure their products or services meet the specified requirements set out in legislation or standards.
In Ireland, the National Accreditation Board checks to ensure these companies are doing their job correctly.
The INAB, which is part of the Health and Safety Authority, said accreditation gives the public confidence in the products and services they are purchasing.
“There has been a significant increase in recent years in the number of EU regulations which now specify the need for accreditation,” said Rosemary Hayden, Programme Manager of INAB.
“Now, accreditation is mandated in many pieces of EU legislation, as policy makers recognise the importance of ensuring only the highest quality goods and services are sold on the EU Single Market,” she added.
Bord Bia first became accredited by the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB) in 2002.
“The pursuit of accreditation was driven by feedback from international markets that customers were setting expectations for suppliers to demonstrate their credentials in areas such as food safety, traceability, welfare and environmental protection,” said Andrew Mahon, Senior Operations Manager, Sustainability & Quality Assurance at Bord Bia.
“Certification to an accredited body provides third party verification of supplier credentials opening doors to markets and opportunity for certified producers and processors.
“From first becoming accredited with INAB over 20 years ago, our Irish food and drink exports have grown from €6 billion to a record high of €16.7 billion in 2022,” he added.
Global accreditation organisations, the International Accreditation Forum and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation will be jointly hosting two virtual events on June 9.
The INAB is encouraging Irish stakeholders, including business, policy makers, and regulators to participate in these events, which it said will examine how accreditation underpins the future of global trade.
Article Source – INAB calls on businesses to be ‘accreditation aware’ – RTE