Immediate Action Needed to Address Food Security Challenges in Pakistan: Tetra Pak

Islamabad, September 3: Tetra Pak has called for comprehensive reforms in food safety regulations, the taxation system, infrastructure and the food supply chain to address Pakistan’s growing food security challenges and ensure the availability of safe, nutritious and affordable food for consumers.

Speaking at a two-day high-level conference in Islamabad, Tetra Pak Director Corporate Affairs for Pakistan, Middle East, North and West Africa, Noor Aftab, said Pakistan’s food security challenge was not limited to food availability, but also involved ensuring that nutritious products reached consumers safely, efficiently and at affordable prices.

He said strengthening systems for food production, processing, packaging, storage and distribution could attract greater investment across the food value chain, but this required supportive policies and a conducive business environment.

Participating in a panel discussion with food policy experts, Noor Aftab stressed the need for comprehensive reforms in food safety laws and the taxation system. He said increasing food production alone would not be sufficient to ensure food security and that fundamental changes were needed across the entire food system.

He called for urgent reforms in food safety legislation and said an effective legal and policy framework was required to facilitate the production and supply of safe, nutritious and affordable processed food products on a large scale.

Noor Aftab also highlighted the importance of fiscal reforms and tax relief to keep essential and nutritious food products within the reach of ordinary consumers, particularly at a time when inflation is rising and purchasing power is declining.

“Any food or nutritional product may be nutritious, but if it is not safe for consumption, its benefits are limited,” he said, stressing that food safety was a critical component of a resilient food system.

He said food processing, packaging, logistics, storage and transportation played a key role in ensuring that food reached consumers in a safe condition.

Noor Aftab said Pakistan’s dairy sector offered a significant opportunity to generate broader economic and nutritional benefits. Pakistan is among the world’s major milk-producing countries, making the sector important for farmers’ incomes, food security, industrial development and future export growth.

He also stressed the need to increase milk productivity at the farm level to make Pakistan’s dairy industry stronger and globally competitive. He said average milk production per animal in Pakistan remained significantly lower than in leading dairy markets, indicating considerable potential to improve productivity and make dairy farming more profitable.

“By combining higher productivity, improved processing capacity and a stronger food safety system, Pakistan can significantly enhance the economic potential of its dairy industry,” he said.

The conference also highlighted school feeding programmes as an example of how stronger food systems and sustainable partnerships can translate nutrition interventions into wider social and economic benefits.

Tetra Pak has been supporting school milk programmes around the world since 1962, with millions of children in different countries receiving milk and nutritious beverages in Tetra Pak packages.

During the discussions, participants highlighted that around four out of every 10 children under the age of five in Pakistan suffer from stunting, describing the situation as a “national emergency.”

Participants stressed the need to remove bottlenecks and ineffective incentives in the food supply chain, strengthen workforce capabilities and introduce uniform food safety standards across the country to tackle malnutrition.

The discussions concluded that addressing Pakistan’s food crisis requires an integrated approach that goes beyond increasing production to strengthening food processing, food safety, packaging, storage, distribution and market access, ensuring that safe, quality and nutritious food becomes accessible to the wider population.