You work at the FAVV, could you explain what they do?
The FAVV is an organization mainly responsible for the control of the safety of the food chain. We try to prevent incidents from happening and ensure that safe products are delivered to the market. At the airport, mainly an import control is performed on animal products, live animals, plants, and food products of non-animal origin.

How did you end up at BRUcargo?
I’ve always worked as a chef in restaurants, where I regularly saw food inspectors passing by. I was interested in how they did their job, following all these regulations. So I decided I wanted to do something similar and started following Biochemistry in evening school. My particular field of interest is microbiology. After my graduation, I began working in a microbiology lab where we regularly received samples from the FAVV. I started thinking about the complete process from the moment the products are imported until it reaches the consumer and found it intriguing if such products could be analyzed by the FAVV at the first point of entry. To realize this dream, I applied for a job at the FAVV, where it is my ultimate goal now to analyze samples at the starting zone.

What is your job function at the FAVV?
I started this job in 2019 as an inspector and now I am the interim cell head of the plant department here in Brucargo. This is mostly the audit of plants, flowers, and plant-based products such as vegetables and fruits. We check mainly for pesticides and quarantine organisms which could prove to be harmful for our environment. For example, if beans from Kenia are imported, we check a certain percentage of this shipment for pesticides. Europe has set regulations on what is allowed and what is not, and it happens regularly that a shipment must be declined due to it not meeting the EU standards. A very important aspect of our job is the constant monitoring and interception of quarantine organisms from third countries that can be harmful for our environment.

If a quarantine organism is found, the shipment is indefinitely detained and placed in quarantine where the importer is provided with options to either destroy the shipment or return it to the country of origin.  There have been many cases where a harmful organism passed through and caused serious damage to not only the environment but also causing economic damages up to millions of euros. For example, the Gastropodas (snails) in Spain.

Is a shipment always destroyed when something is found?
No, there are three options: destroy the shipment, return it back, or process the shipment so that it can be accepted. Sending it back almost never happens luckily, because if we find something damaging in the products and send it back, we are not sure what happens with it eventually.

What products must be kept a close eye on, and are regularly being destroyed?
The frequency of declined shipments is mostly seasonal. We had to destroy a lot of mangoes last year, because we found fruit fly larvae in them which can destroy multiple fields here in the EU. These mangoes come from Africa, and we communicate every interception to the EU commission, who in their turn communicates this constantly with Africa. The interceptions this year were comparatively lower than last year, we believe the EU commission has clearly conveyed the message to Africa. In my opinion, this is very important, as we not only protect our borders but also help improve the quality of the food in Africa. Europe has strict regulations, and therefore, other countries must follow if they want to trade with us.
 
What is the most fun part of your job?
Definitely the inspection aspects of the shipments, performing the physical inspections of the shipments in particular. The icing on the cake, as weird as it sounds, is to find infected shipments. This means that we are doing our job correctly, ensuring that only safe products and healthy plants free from diseases, pesticides and infestations are delivered to the consumers, however at the same time I feel bad about the shipments that do get rejected and are destroyed.