The innovations in the GLOBAL GAP Quality Protocol for fruits and vegetables and the certification requirements demanded by supermarket chains are the main topics to be discussed at the GLOBAL GAP Congress, which will be held on April 28 and 29 in Almeria. The Association of Fruit and Vegetables Producing Organizations of Almeria, COEXPHAL, and Agrocolor SL, a company dedicated to agro-food certification, are organizing the congress.
The meeting will be attended by European supermarket chains that require this Quality Protocol, such as Rewe Group in Germany and the British chain Wal-Mart / ASDA. Guido Siebenmorgen, Senior Manager for Sustainability at REWE, will discuss what this chain requires from its suppliers. REWE Group is a retail group with revenues that amount to $43.5 billion Euro. It is present in fourteen European countries and has 270,000 employees.
The British chain Wal-Mart / ASDA will be represented by Jim Jefcoate, Group Technical Director at IPL's 4 Food Divisions and the Group's Sustainability Program. ASDA is the second largest chain in the UK, behind Tesco and before Sainsbury's (since 2003), and is part of the US Group Wal-Mart. In 2012 it had 175,000 employees and 568 outlets in the UK. Its turnover this year amounted to 27,086 million Euro.
The congress, which will be held in the Aguadulce's Exhibition and Congress Palace, in Roquetas del Mar, Almeria, is part of the so called GLOBAL GAP Tour; the meetings organized by this private organization dedicated to establishing voluntary standards for the certification of agricultural products within and outside the EU. They bring together retailers, retail chains and producers around the EU. The best-known standard of this entity is the GLOBAL GAP protocol. FEPEX holds the secretariat of the Spanish Technical Working Group.