• Entrepreneurs
• Business information
• Certification
• CAFIA laboratories
• CAFIA opinions
• More information
• Consumers
• How to know the food market
• Results of CAFIA inspections
• Consumer rights
• List of risky sites
• Hoaxes
• Other visitors
• Press Releases
• Internships at CAFIA
• Public contracts

1. INTRODUCTION

Dear Friends:

In the course of 2003, most of us may not even have realized that just in that year we would have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the existence of the inspection authority, which was and is vigilant – originally in the Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic – over food safety. The original office, which was founded at the beginning of 1953, was called the State Agriculture Inspection and became the basis for the nowadays Czech Agriculture and Food Authority.

Only some of our retired former colleagues remember the beginnings of the office today. Nonetheless, I dare say that the present form of the CAFIA is miles away from the original office. The radical changes, which the Inspection underwent in last 50 years and is still undergoing, are not merely a result of the general changes in the society, research, technologies or communication and other life areas. The changes, which we experience every day in our office, also result from the effort, initiative, diligence, resourcefulness and creativity of most of you. At present, we are fully comparable with similar institutions working in most European countries.

Throughout 2003, all of us strived to get prepared for the following year, which will be already marked by the fulfilling of “The Accession Treaty of the Czech Republic to the European Union”. I am sure that the CAFIA is prepared well for this important step. We have managed to meet all tasks we faced in the last few years and if some partial work-related shortcomings could not have been eliminated, it is up to us, how fast we will cope with them during the first months of 2004.

Year 2003 resembled in many ways a marathon race, which we ran through at a speed of a sprint. It may seem to many, that on May 1, 2004, we will finally reach the finish line and will be able to have a long hoped-for rest. The accession to the countries of the European Community, though, is not the most important goal of our effort. Our goal has been and shall be, in the first place, protection of the interests of consumers and honest entrepreneurs. Therefore, we will not relax our efforts in the following period, maybe only trying not to accelerate the pace at which we literally rushed forward, while at the same time we should deepen and improve the quality of our work.

I would like to thank all of you for your work. Without your hard work, effort, ideas and enthusiasm, we could have never been where we actually are today. I also want to thank you for your openness and sincerity in the moment when we decided for a more open mutual dialogue. I can assure you that our mutual communication will continue in the future as well.

The first fifty years of the existence of the Inspection are over. Let us wish each other good health, much strength, many good ideas and, above all, optimism to the next fifty years.

Jakub Šebesta
General Manager