Tag Archives: suppliers

Recall

Sargento’s Supplier Has Listeria Concerns, Recalls Ensue

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Recall

After being informed by its supplier Deutsch Kase Haus, LLC that its specialty Longhorn Colby cheese may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, Sargento Foods, Inc. recalled several retail cheese products. The recalled Colby and Pepper jack cheeses (available on the company’s website) were packaged at Sargento’s Plymouth, Wisconsin plant. The company also recalled several other cheeses that were packaged at the same time “out of an abundance of caution”.

The recall involving Deutsch Kase Haus is not limited to Sargento. Guggisberg Cheese, Inc., Meijer and Sara Lee have recalled their Colby and Pepper jack cheeses. According to a release by US Foods, the product recalls were initiated after a notification by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture that some products manufactured on November 3, 10 and 18 could be contaminated with Lm.

Taylor Farms also recalled products that contained the cheese products—the company’s Class I recall involved 6,630 pounds of chicken and pork salad products that were produced and packaged from February 6–9, 2017.

product recall sheet

Effective Supplier/Retailer Communication Eases Pain of Food Recalls

By Holly Mockus
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product recall sheet

Food recalls are not 100% avoidable, and they are costly. The hit to an individual food company or retailer, on average, can run to tens of millions of dollars. Annually, millions of consumers become ill as a result of contaminated food products, and the dollar costs in terms of lost productivity, medical treatment and deaths run into the tens of billions.1 More than 20% of consumers have said that they would not purchase any brands from a company suffering a food recall.2 At best, damage to a company’s brand and reputation could take a long time to repair. Clearly, the need to prevent food contamination is obvious and should be the ultimate goal of all food safety professionals.

But despite the best industry efforts, recalls inevitably occur. And since they aren’t 100% avoidable, suppliers and retailers must continue to look for ways to minimize the safety and financial impact of the recall events that do occur. It’s good to begin that process by understanding some statistics surrounding the most common recalls. Globally, 46% of food recalls are for chemical hazards or the introduction of non-food-grade ingredients. 79% of these are due to undeclared allergens. 26% of recalls are for food-borne pathogens, and 8% are due to physical hazards (metal, glass, plastic, paper, wood, etc.). The remaining 20% are generally quality-based recalls and withdrawals.3

Head Off Recalls Before They Occur

Knowing the numbers helps suppliers and retailers home in on their most likely problem areas and get a leg up on potential product contamination problems. Since chemical hazards are the single biggest culprit, and because most of these instances are due to allergens, food companies should closely examine their cleaning and sanitation practices during production line changeovers. Keep in mind the potential role of contract service providers as sources of adulteration. Regarding pathogens, evaluate raw and ready-to-eat segregation procedures, staff access points, and  good manufacturing practices and employee traffic patterns.

Many companies focus their efforts on passing food safety certification audits, but faithful adherence to food safety measures just to pass an audit misses the point. Focus on the development and implementation of comprehensive food safety systems to guard against contamination and food safety incidents, and not just avoid non-conformances to certification codes. Preventing food safety incidents and recalls before they happen must be the priority.

Supplier Best Practice: The Mock Trace

Manufacturers, suppliers and certification bodies have evolved a set of best-practice recommendations that will go a long way toward reducing the number of food safety incidents and recalls. These include conducting regular internal audits of food safety plans and procedures, including approved supplier programs and environmental monitoring programs, both to re-evaluate their effectiveness and discover new or previously overlooked gaps.

Suppliers should consider taking things to the next level. SQFI’s LeAnn Chuboff suggests that suppliers “make their retailers happy” through the use of mock trace exercises.3 These “dry runs” are invaluable for reinforcing the close examination and evaluation of recall plans and to become intimately familiar with the necessary procedures in the event of an actual adulteration event. Mock trace exercises should be intensive: They are particularly effective in identifying gaps when they occur during off shifts. Making the exercise challenging rather than check-the-box easy helps companies reveal and close critical gaps. Conduct the mock trace in both directions, from raw materials to finished goods, and vice versa.

Include every department in the company. For mock trace exercises to be completely effective, review all documentation for errors or omissions. All employees should be interviewed to determine whether they fully understand food safety and documentation procedures. Review training modules and observe manufacturing procedures for evidence of knowledge or operational gaps. Examine bulk material receiving and storage, employee and material traffic patterns, packaging materials and procedures, and cleaning and maintenance chemicals.

Speed as well as accuracy and thoroughness are critical in the event of an actual recall event. Companies should practice rapid response. Take advantage of all the accumulated experiences from the mock exercise to improve every aspect of the company’s food contamination response tools and practices.

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Recall

More Ice Cream Recalls Over Listeria Concerns

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Recall

The 2016 Food Safety Consortium features a Listeria Detection & Control Workshop | Don’t miss this event two day event, December 7–8 in Schaumburg, IL | LEARN MOREOver the past few days there have been at least four recalls over Listeria concerns in ice cream products. On Monday, Blue Bell Ice Cream voluntarily recalled all of the products made with a cookie dough ingredient from one of its suppliers, Aspen Hills. “Although our products in the marketplace have passed our test and hold program, which requires that finished product samples from a batch test negative for Listeria monocytogenes before the batch can be released, Blue Bell is initiating this recall out of an abundance of caution,” according to a release on FDA’s website. Other recalls include:

Similar to the Blue Bell recall, the other two recalls involving cookie dough came from the ingredient supplied by Aspen Hills, Inc.

No illnesses have been reported.

Randy Fields, Repositrak
FST Soapbox

Food Safety Collaboration across the Value Chain

By Randy Fields
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Randy Fields, Repositrak

FSMA is the law of the land and the FDA is starting to enforce compliance, so now is the right time to discuss what’s working and what isn’t in terms of trading partner collaboration. Just how are companies successfully coordinating the movement of goods from the point of production and processing to the American consumer and ensuring food safety throughout the value chain?

Risk reduction continues to be the focus of collaboration between trading partners, with the understanding that failing to meet compliance requirements can mean big fines for companies and jail time for executives. We’ve seen a marked increase on this topic in the sessions at trade shows and conferences, and the number of webinars and other educational opportunities has soared during the past year. Most importantly, the number of meetings continues to increase between retailers, suppliers and carriers where the discussion of food safety compliance and risk reduction is high on the agenda.

Eliminating risk is always top of mind for a company’s lawyers and accountants, but recent issues have caused other company functions to increase their collaboration with contacts at trading partner companies. On the retail side, merchandisers are holding vendors accountable for compliance and requiring food safety documents for new suppliers at signup. Purchasing is reconfiguring the purchasing process to suspend or stop PO generation and payment if a supplier is out of compliance. And, store operators are alerted to potential safety concerns, so they can act expediently on behalf of their consumers.

For suppliers, sales teams are getting necessary training on food safety, and they are using this knowledge to engage customers and protect their brand equity with consumers. Their supply chain and IT managers are also managing to the new FSMA normal of managing dozens of new documents and present written records in accordance with the 24-hour requirement. For their part, transportation companies are working to meet new FSMA requirements that demand assurance in writing that food was transported under proper sanitary conditions.

What’s Driving This Collaboration?

Similar to Sarbanes-Oxley, CEOs are responsible for verifying the compliance of their supply chain under FSMA. Given these risks, companies have started to automate their management of compliance documentation. Forward-thinking companies are even moving beyond compliance document management and are applying the same technology to ensure that important product information like gluten-free items and allergen-related declarations are properly documented.

Collaboration is supported in today’s environment by technology, which saves companies both time and money by leveraging automation to ensure the accuracy of documents (e.g., indemnifications and insurance), providing executives with information on which to make better business partner decisions.

Collaboration is a critical cog in the wheel of the value chain that helps provide the consumer with a safer food supply while reducing both brand risk to suppliers and retailers and health risk to all. The industry needs to strengthen its working relationships to ensure this effort continues without constraints.

FST Soapbox

Inquiries, Responses and Audits: The Chipotle Effect

By Dan Bernkopf
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In an age where news is reported instantly, those outside the food industry have a heightened awareness and concern over their favorite brands’ commitment to food safety. Conversely, every food industry’s safety and quality operations teams are more than likely putting measures in place to tighten up their supply chain controls and re-evaluate their own food safety programs to ensure that their companies don’t become the next headline.

You better believe suppliers and their customers alike are also re-evaluating their ability to quickly, and effectively, respond to such an incident with the data and records needed to determine root causes—and with good merit, especially if you take a step back and really think about what is needed when a response or inquiry comes in surrounding a Chipotle-type food safety incident. Responses to such incidents typically fall along the lines of: 

  • Evidence of current food safety plan, including comprehensive risk analysis, HACCP/HARPC plan, validation studies or documents
  • Inspection data and documents on your suppliers, including onsite inspection, transportation and product receiving inspections, complete with non-compliance reports and CAPAs for the last six months
  • All data records relative to your internal processing CCP(s) or equivalent, including monitoring frequencies and all non-compliance reports, complete with their CAPAs for the last six months
  • All regulatory and non-regulatory audit reports or actions, including non-compliance reports and their CAPAs
  • Additional available internal or external laboratory evidence that demonstrates environmental monitoring of your facilities and resulting continuous improvement and sanitation validation for the last two years
  • Additional internal or external laboratory pathogen monitoring programs for field, transportation, raw material supply and finished products, etc. as evidence to support your food safety program

The sheer volume of records, data and information needed in such an on-demand short timeframe can be extremely overwhelming. Without quick access to the critical records needed to determine root cause or, more importantly, thwart an incident from expanding, food safety and quality operations should be taking a close look at how they are managing their food safety data records and reports.

Are binders full of documents, or a combination of paper/silo data records going to suffice when it comes to inquiries, responses (and audits)? Or, is there a better way to manage food safety and quality data to ensure not only data is accessible, but also that food safety programs are working?

One sure bet is that there will be a higher number of audits and inquiries. Is your team and/or supplier prepared for the increase of these types of activities?

  • Inquiry: A request for a single or series of data and or documents usually related to a specific FSQA event or question
  • Response: The collected data, data reports, document or document reports related to a specific audit or inquiry
  • Audit: An activity that reviews one or many elements of a food safety plan to assure that the plan is complete, performed as described and meets the food safety design as intended. Audits are known and expected activities to review such safety plan elements even though the actual audit date and time may be known or unknown

We all know that audits are often lengthy exercises, yet they are still predictable. On the other hand, inquiries can be more difficult in that information requests may involve a very deep dive into a very specific area of inquiry.

In all honesty, if inquiries or responses or audits have to be planned for in advance, then you are not prepared. In order to always be prepared, it’s imperative to have better systems in place to manage any type of internal or external examination of your food safety and quality information. Regardless of whether it is an audit, response or inquiry, it is important to have easy access to records, verify that your programs are working, have corrective actions in place, and show visibility (and transparency) in your operation.

Thus it all comes back to how you or your suppliers are managing food safety records day in, day out. If FSQA operations are still relying on manual-based food safety and quality management processes versus food safety and quality management technologies, then chances are that you’re reacting to latent results, and you’re not able to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. The burden to manage inquires, responses or audits—as they continue to grow in cadence—will become overwhelming.

Without a doubt, the Chipotle effect is being felt throughout the industry. There will be increased accountability to ensure an adequate food safety program is in place and verification that the program is working. It will become even more imperative—and expected—that data and records are readily available to efficiently respond to inquiries, responses and audits.

Cristin Singer, assurance partner at McGladrey LLP

Security Risks, Protecting Reputation Among Concerns of Food & Beverage Companies

By Maria Fontanazza
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Cristin Singer, assurance partner at McGladrey LLP

In a recent survey of food and beverage executives, nearly half of respondents named product quality as a major risk area and cited product recall capabilities as a priority. However, only about one-third of executives expressed confidence in their companies’ current safety and recall strategies.

Cristin Singer, assurance partner at McGladrey LLP
Cristin Singer, assurance partner at McGladrey LLP

“Mitigating [product] risks starts with tone at the top and leadership within a company,” says Cristin Singer, assurance partner with McGladrey, LLP. “Companies have a strong focus on the diligence associated with quality (especially among employees involved in testing) and building long-standing, trusted relationships with suppliers and vendors.”  Many companies are also increasing their testing of imported products and making sure that their partners are familiar with the cultures of the regions from which they import goods as part of their risk mitigation strategy.

The Food and Beverage Industry survey, conducted by McGladrey, involved 179 executives, owners, and decision makers from food and beverage companies with annual revenues between $10 million and $1 billion.

Respondents consisted of retailers (51.1%), manufacturers and processors (34.8%), distributors (26.4%) and growers (6.7%). Figure courtesy of McGladrey.
Respondents consisted of retailers (51.1%), manufacturers and processors (34.8%), distributors (26.4%) and growers (6.7%). Figure courtesy of McGladrey.

Product Recalls. Some companies are basing their product recall strategy on where they actually fall within the supply chain. “I’ve found that when a company feels that they serve as a middle-man distributor, and depending on the contractual relationship with the co-packer, they look to the processor or co-packer to manage the recall process,” says Singer, who is also a member of McGladrey’s national consumer products team.  In addition, Singer sees a focus on due diligence related to co-packers and suppliers to ensure they have proper certification, and processes and procedures in place to manage risks and recalls.

Ability to respond to reputation risks

Wage and Labor. Food and beverage companies are also facing a variety of wage and labor issues. Larger companies expressed concern with increased labor costs and attracting technical talent; smaller companies are more worried about minimum wage legislation labor costs, and retaining skilled labor workers on the shop floor. Executives also cited that minimum wage legislation and the Affordable Care Act could pose challenges over the next year.

Data Security. As more companies adopt platforms that store sensitive data, the security of these systems is important. Yet only about 42% of executives are very confident that their data and systems are secure from authorized access (about 50% are “somewhat confident”). Improving employee security protocols and providing training, involving data security consultants, and conducting due diligence on vendor data security are among the actions that companies are taking to enhance the security of their platforms. “If there’s a data breach, a lot of sensitive information could be put out there, including product formulations, intellectual property, and employee data (social security numbers or healthcare data),” says Singer.  “Initially a lot of companies on the retail side were focusing on data security. Now we’re educating our clients, especially those on the distribution, processing or manufacturing side. All levels of the supply chain are at risk.”

Randy Fields, Repositrak
FST Soapbox

Despite FSMA Exemptions, Compliance Will Not Be Optional For Small Suppliers

By Randy Fields
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Randy Fields, Repositrak

The product recall at Blue Bell Creameries earlier this year is yet another example of food safety issues negatively impacting food marketers, growers, processers and manufacturers. We all remember the Peanut Corporation of America’s salmonella outbreak in 2008 and the Jensen Farms listeria outbreak in 2011. Salmonella-tainted eggs in 2010, E. coli in strawberries in 2011, and listeria in caramel apples last Halloween combined with dozens of others during the last six years, have sickened thousands and killed dozens of people.

The brand reputation impact from the incidents at Peanut Corporation of America and Jensen Farms was terminal—both companies went bankrupt. The effect on Blue Bell, while likely not fatal, is expected by industry experts to be substantial and include loss of revenue and market share. The company has already announced plans to lay off more than 1,000 workers as a result of the recall.

In addition, growers saw cantaloupe consumption take a nosedive after the Jensen Farms listeria outbreak, which was one of the worst foodborne illness outbreaks in U.S. history in terms of number of deaths. They are only now seeing sales levels return to those before the incident. And because the farm itself went out of business, personal injury lawyers went after the companies that sold the disease-ridden cantaloupes—the retailers. By virtue of last year’s out-of-court settlement by Walmart on the Jensen Farms lawsuit, both suppliers and retailers are now responsible for everything they sell.

Enter the Food Safety Modernization Act, signed in 2011 and about to begin finalization in August. FSMA mandates that retailers and suppliers have documentation that verifies their supply chain’s regulatory compliance is readily accessible for government inspection. Add these records to the business relationship records that retailers and suppliers should already be maintaining (including indemnifications and certificates of insurance that help manage brand risk), and you’d think our risk of foodborne illness is about be eradicated.

Although FSMA represents the most sweeping change to our food safety laws in the last 70 years, it may not have the greatest impact where the supply chain is most vulnerable. Today the largest suppliers that sell the majority of our food have very sophisticated systems to ensure safe food production and transportation. This group will have the easiest path to compliance with FSMA, and they most likely already hold themselves to a higher standard. It’s actually the smaller suppliers, which likely do not have the available resources or sophistication to comply with FSMA requirements, that will be exempt from certain documentation under FSMA based on their size. This group of suppliers is growing rapidly to meet consumer desire for fresh food that is locally grown and produced. Unfortunately for them, it’s only a matter of time before wholesalers and retailers decide that the risk is too great to continue to do business with these small suppliers.

The good news is that technology exists that can help small suppliers reduce risk in their extended supply chains. Affordable, interoperable systems have been developed to address the market need for receiving, storing, sharing and managing regulatory, audit and insurance documentation. Suppliers of any size can also track products as they move through the supply chain and trace them back in the event of a recall. This move to automation will help all suppliers not only meet the demands of FSMA, but also establish a base for retailer and consumer demands for transparency in the supply chain going forward.

Having a comprehensive food safety system is quickly becoming a competitive advantage. Retailers and consumers are looking for those suppliers that have an unblemished safety record and are transparent about their safety processes, so the time is now for small suppliers to hold themselves to a higher standard than FSMA requires for future business opportunities. The stakes are just too high for retailers and wholesalers to not verify that everything they sell to consumers is produced and transported safely.

How Supplier Scorecards Affect You

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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A supplier scorecard allows companies to measure vendor performance as it relates to risk management, quality, and compliance. Having up-to-date and accurate documentation, particularly surrounding foreign supplier verification, is an important part of FSMA compliance. Suppliers must be able to provide immediate and accurate information, especially in the event of an audit. Marc Simony, vice president of marketing at TraceGains, explains why companies should build the scorecard over time, evaluating a supplier’s performance against specific business requirements.

What’s Frustrating for Food Manufacturers?

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Gary Nowacki, CEO of TraceGains, highlights the concerns that came out of an Ask the Expert discussion about Supplier Qualifications and Management at the 2014 Food Safety Consortium.

“A common takeaway–whether it was small, mid-size or large companies–was the frustration of having to do more audits, and the growing demand for more paperwork. A question that was often asked was that ‘my customer is asking me to subscribe to a different audit, and that defeats the promise of GFSI, that it would lead to fewer audits.’ My advice to them is to not just blindly agree, but ask the customer politely what exactly they are looking for, and see if they can address that. Another frustration related to the increase in paperwork and the time and resources consumed in filling these plethora of forms. So there was a discussion about how we can standardize these. And people are looking to get automated solutions as they are not getting more headcount.”

William L Michels, President, ISM Services

Managing Suppliers: Race to Win, Rather Than to the Bottom!

By Sangita Viswanathan
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William L Michels, President, ISM Services

Continued consolidation of the food supply base will lead to more powerful and assertive customers in some markets. These customers are placing increasing demand on the entire supply chain for reduced cost and higher levels of value delivery.

While many companies focus on price reduction as a solution, they soon realize that there is only so much supplier margin and they soon become in effective in trying to meet the increasing demands of the customer and company management. They also realize that there is a significant cost and time involved in changing and developing new suppliers.

The solution to increasing demand for value is to get business alignment across the entire supply chain, which requires value-based relationships. In an upcoming webinar presented by TraceGains, William L Michels, will speak about how a company can build such a process that delivers cost and value improvement year on year, and how you can better understand SRM (click here to register).

Michels is President of ISM Services, a specialty training & consulting company that focuses on procurement and supply chain management. In a chat with Food Safety Tech, Michels provided a sneak-peek into his presentation.

FST: Supplier Relationship Management is critical and challenging. What aspects of this will you be addressing in this webinar? Why are these important to food manufacturers today?

Michels: The food industry has been consolidating for some time, and now it is essential that food companies align with the suppliers that can meet their overall business goals for cost, quality, safety and value delivery. The drive for continued consolidation will ultimately impact supply chains leaving integrated, exclusive and competing supply chains. Only the leanest, most efficient, and aligned supply chains will provide maximum competitive advantage to the end customer.

In the past many companies have focused on price, but as buyers gain transparency on supply chain cost, yields and efficiency, they need to manage the supply chain and optimize value delivery. SRM is the process by which companies can integrate the supply chain and extract real value.

FST: In the webinar you will be speaking about how to identify which suppliers are good candidates for SRM. Can you give us an idea about that?

SRM is a resource-intensive investment with a big pay back, therefore, we need to align with the most strategic suppliers to assure that we can get the maximum value and competitive advantage. The webinar will provide a template for choosing the correct suppliers.

FST: What are some common SRM errors/ omissions that you notice? And how would your webinar help address these?

Companies fail to look beyond the immediate first tier supplier in the supply chain and fail to recognize all aspects of the relationship that will lead to competitive advantage for both firms. Through the SRM process, companies can improve speed to market, total cost of ownership, quality, availability, and risk management. The webinar will detail how every supplier in the supply chain can incrementally add value.

FST: How is SRM evolving and what does this mean to the food industry?

If food companies continue to focus on price, rather that cost and value, the food industry will not progress far. Driving already slim margins lower will not provide the necessary capital to invest, innovate, create new processes and add incremental value. By recognizing the need for transparency and linkages of business objectives across the supply base, there is an opportunity for true transformation. This is an evolutionary process.

Michels will talk more on this topic in the webinar. Click here for details and to register.