In West Africa, two popular traditional cassava-based staple foods are pounded fufu and kokonte. In response to growing demand by working families as well as for export, convenience forms of these two cassava-based products are increasingly being produced by a number of small and medium-scale food industries in Ghana. To meet the requirements of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement, a number of these food industries have taken steps to improve upon the safety and quality management systems for these two products.
The SPS agreement recognizes the role of food safety system based on the principles of the hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) (Codex Alimentarius Comm, 1997). A necessary condition for the use of this principle, by any food factory, is that a full operational pre-requisite programme must be in place. This is a case study, carried out from 2004 to 2006, to develop appropriate quality assurance systems for fufu flour and kokonte flour produced by two Accra-based food companies, Company A and Company B.