From her years of extensive professional experience, Parvin Banu, has rightfully earned her place as Head of Quality for GFI. While being a biotechnologist by education, Parvin has since risen up the ranks, including at a major food and beverage industry player where she had previously worked with for 15 years, and accumulated immense knowledge in complying and adhering to the highest global standards of quality assurance in every step of the entire food and beverage manufacturing process and industry.
Having first joined GFI in 2017, Parvin has since implemented considerable changes that have placed the company’s food and beverage production processes further aligned with local, regional and global quality standards and regulations. And GFI’s numerous quality certifications, the more recent of which is the separate AIB certifications for the manufacturing facilities of GFI’s frozen and snacking divisions, speaks volumes of what GFI and Parvin and her team have already achieved so far in terms of raising the bar of food safety across its processes, facilities and work culture.
Yet, Parvin believes that there is still a lot more that needs to be done particularly with the challenges presented by the industrial revolution 4.0 and the ever-changing industry quality regulations.
“The biggest challenge for me and the quality team is not from within the organization but outside,” Parvin said. “Local government regulations keep changing and so does our export markets. So, we always have to constantly keep up. But thanks to the all-out support of the leadership team led by Mr. Ahmed Bayoumi, quality is of a top priority on almost all aspects of our operation.
“In addition, my active involvement with the food and beverage business group under the Dubai Chamber of Commerce enables me to constantly interact with key industry players and regulatory authorities,” Parvin reveals. “This provides GFI with an inside track of new and upcoming regulations and enables us to present feedback that are highly considered by regulators. Such feedback then helps in shaping regulations to suit local market conditions.
“In terms of system standards, the systems building process across GFI is ongoing,” Parvin added. “This is an additional enhancement that will also help build data to empower us even further to make the right decisions. It will be a data-driven decision-making process.”
