Dangote Sugar obtains SON food safety management certification

Nigeria’s foremost sugar refinery, Dangote Sugar Refinery, has been certified by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) as a food safety compliant company.
The management of the refinery said at the weekend that it had successfully obtained the Food Safety Management Systems certification (NIS ISO 22000:2005) issued by the Standard regulatory body.
According to the Deputy Group Managing Director, Dangote Sugar, Engineer Abdullahi Sule, “the Food Safety Management System is a standard that guides the refinery’s core business, the refining of high quality sugar using safe practices to manufacture finished product using hygienically habits in the production processes”.
He added that the Food Safety Management System, FSMS, (ISO 22000:2005); certification is the third in the series of ISO certification on Quality, Process Safety/Security and Food Safety, achieved by the Sugar Refinery, and thus making it the only sugar organization in the country with three ISO certification.
He disclosed that in addition to the Food Safety Management System, (FSMS) ISO 22000:2005; Dangote Sugar Refinery is also ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System (QMS), and ISO 18001:2007 Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS), certified.
These certifications attest to Sugar Refinery’s relentless efforts at achieving its set goal to be one of the world’s leading integrated sugar producers, with high quality products and using best practices in the day to day running of its operations, in line with internationally accepted standards.
DSR is currently working towards the achievement of FSSC 22000, (Food Safety System Certification); a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) recognized scheme.
Dangote Sugar Refinery is actively pursuing a backward integration master plan with a target of producing a total of 1.5 million tons of sugar per annum. The target is to enable it meet the national sugar master plan.
It plans an additional Investment of N180billion for 4 factories in Sokoto and Kebbi States and has 150,000 hectares of land allocated for the project in Kogi, Kwara, Jigawa, Sokoto, Taraba and Kebbi.
Dangote Sugar acquired the moribund 50, 000 tons per annum capacity sugar producing factory-the Savannah Sugar Company Limited in Numan, Adamawa State in 2002. The buy-over, midwifed by the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), was the fallout of the failure of several attempts made by the Federal Government to reposition the nation’s foremost sugar company.
Dangote Industries Limited emerged as the preferred bidder and core investor and after which it quickly went into turnaround activities in the Company. To put the company back in shape, Dangote began investments of several billions of Naira. Specifically, N12 billion initial investments was made by Dangote Group as core running expenses into the business after the take-over in the first five years.
The areas that gulped the money included factory and estate rehabilitation; purchase of vehicles, trucks and heavy duty equipment; salaries and wages; farm inputs like fertilizers and chemicals, among others; spare parts for factory and heavy duty equipment and payments in the form of Sugar Development Levy.