Message from the Chairman：
It is very honored for me to take over the 10th Chairman of the board, I deeply understand that this is the beginning of a mission and a responsibility. The main aim of Total Quality Food (TQF) Association is to promote the Total Quality Food Certification Program (referred to as the TQF certification program), to create a high-reliability supply-chain environment in food industry and to ensure consumers obtain good food safety and quality rights. In order to inherit the foundation established by the predecessors and continue to carry forward the aspirations of this well-intentioned social welfare organization, the current board of directors and supervisors has studied the short-, medium- and long-term development strategies and measures, and used it to formulate annual work plans to improve decision quality.
The evolution of TQFA has grown from 33 years ago from a government-led organization to the present day independent not-for-profit organization. At first, the certification program was established on 1989 by Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) as promotion of Food-GMP certification system, then entered a period of public and private sectors cooperation, until now the TQF certification program is completely run by a private organization. which adopts fair and objective third-party certification system to verify effectiveness of self-management of food industry. In addition to food manufacturers, TQFA member also includes food raw material and retailers along with consumer groups, with the aim of incorporating the whole supply chain system ranging from upstream to downstream to create a high-reliability supply-chain environment.
As part of continuous support for local food industries that actively seeking for international business opportunities, TQF Association and Japan Food Safety Management (hereinafter referred as JFSM) has signed a Partnership Agreement during “TQF Association 2022 General Assembly” on November 30th,2022. This agreement comes with the aim of promoting mutual recognition of equivalent voluntary conformity assessment programs for food industries, increasing brand recognition and assurance for both retailers and customers, as well as creating opportunities for both sides to expand their market globally.
This partnership agreement will facilitate 138 TQF-certified sites to be immediately qualified for JFS-B mutual recognition program. Whereas the same goes to 104 JFS-C certified sites that are also qualified for TQF Level 1 mutual recognition program. As for JFS-B conformed sites, a total of 2,032 certified-sites should pass the gap audit along with product sampling and testing to be fully qualified for TQF Level 1 mutual recognition program.
To strengthen the operation of program management and align the certification standards to achieve consistency with the global requirements, the revision of TQF Certification Program to Version 2023 has been done. This revision focuses on retaining set of 28 General Technical Specification and renaming it as Manual, to be used as the normative reference document for TQF Certification Program, then consolidating the previous program’s requirements to two new sections of General Requirements and Technical Guidelines which are reconstructed based on GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiatives) international benchmarking requirements.
In the past, the official website of TQFA just focused on providing industry information and platform of certification management, but putting less information on the consumers' side. In order to tackle this problem, TQFA has redesigned the portal to include both consumer and industrial services. The function of the portal is now divided into consumer and industry oriented. Moreover, to strengthen the original function as well as improve consumers' recognition of the TQF Certification Program, it also integrates multiple different webpages into one comprehensive website, that can be accessed through one-single coordinated management.
The portal also focuses on more friendly aesthetic design to enhance consumer experience, displayed through sets of function and layouts, which are more convenient to use, allowing TQF Taiwan High-Quality Foods to Welcome The Whole Crowd through TQF Portal.
