The event focuses on food quality and safety, protection of originality and geographical origin of products, adulteration of food and the effects of food on human health.
A State Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Tugomir Majdak, recalled that last week parliament had adopted a law banning unfair trade practices in the food supply chain, adding that although some EU member states had adopted a code in that regard, Croatia had opted for a law as a stricter measure.
The Croatian Competition Agency will monitor trade practices to prevent unfairness and the law will enter into force on April 1.
The European Commission will prepare a legal framework to adopt legislation at the EU level that will put producers on a more equal footing with other stakeholders in the food supply chain and prevent retail chains from blackmailing producers with regard to the distribution of their products, he said.
Majdak said that the ministry had invested a lot into the alert system in order to remove any irregularities in product distribution.
The head of the "Andrija Stampar" public health institute, Zvonimir Sostar, explained that food production was the second most important economic branch in the EU, with a turnover of about 800 billion euro and more than 48 million employed.
Because of this, it is important, in the race for profit, to protect food quality and safety and enable Croatian producers to be competitive, said Sostar.
The Opatija congress on food safety and quality ends on November 24.