How can you ensure food safety with your suppliers?

Choosing a supplier is a hard and a sensitive task that needs carefulness and patience. Picking a supplier should only be done after the completion of a successful supplier audit that will be carried out on the proposed supplier. Their food safety management is a crucial point to be looked into. (HACCP, GMP) Sanitation is another important part to be inspected because the sanitary condition of a facility is also important in the process. Storage and transportation is the last action on the chain of actions and needs utmost attention to ensure proper delivery to the intended recipient.

Choosing a supplier in a food manufacturing company is a very challenging task but achievable: 1. Ensuring that the supplier are food safety complaince, by checking their track record. 2. Carry out supplier Audit on food safety complaince

Supplier audit is very important and it’s a requirement for ISO 2200, sometimes you need to go over and beyond normal routine checks of COA and other documents. You need to go to the suppliers facility(depending on material they supply). Check their practices and their commitment to continuous improvement. Majority of multinational food companies will not allow you supplier them RM or PM if you don’t have some major certifications e.g QMS, FSMS and the likes. Then when you get the materials in your facility, store appropriately and use before the best before date.

Suppliers should have integrity in the market and be professional when it comes to fulfilment. Reliability and fulfilment are the very essence of a good supplier.

Choosing reputable suppliers also entails doing Second party audits and checking for documentation of good pre requisite programs , regulatory compliance and their food safety management systems that they apply

Your food safety expectations should be effectively communicated to proposed supplier so that they can perform to your organisation expectations without fail. A contract stating the acceptable limits of materials should be signed and all stated specifications in colour, shape, size, storage. Any change in specifications should be also communicated properly to prevent any deviations.

Communication to suppliers about expected requirements is highlighted in ISO 22000 as top management commitment in clause 1.5.

This involves?carefully selecting and verifying suppliers based on their compliance with food safety certifications, quality standards, and regulatory requirements. Regular audits and inspections ensure suppliers adhere to food safety regulations and maintain high-quality standards.

After you must have settled with a particular supplier it's paramount to monitor their performance through supplier evaluation system to see how they are performing in relation with the set standard. A constant verification process is needed to ensure continuous improvement.

It is important that during these supplier audits, the objectives and scope of the audit are established, communicated, maintained and confirmed before, during and after the audit. Recommendations raised during these audits should be relevant and tailored to suit their processes to avoid unnecessary complexities and documentations.The aim should be to help suppliers, not witch hunt them as such practices may end up doing more harm than good to their food safety system. Also, Non-conformities observed must be properly communicated with the aim of ensuring process improvement.

Training your supplier to perform better is another approach that can be taken to get your desired specifications in QFS. Training your team to help detect variations, defects and out of specifications material can help improve the supplier by compiling feedbacks on how they can perform better and meet expectations.

When concerns are raised from the user to the supplier on the quality of a material there should be a joint effort to trace the root of the issues and get it corrected. This will be effectively done by filling a CAPA form or engaging in a RCA exercise to determine where the issue is coming from and possible solutions that can be provided. For RCA and CAPA to work, there must be transparency, accountability and honesty in providing information that will help get solutions to the issues.

In my opinion, the field of food safety is one of the areas in which scrutiny and caution are exercised in the smallest details ● Supplier qualification: Conduct a comprehensive screening of potential suppliers to ensure they meet the necessary standards and certifications for food safety. ● Establish clear food safety expectations in contracts, comply with regulations and standards. ● Conduct regular on-site operations of supplier facilities to assess their compliance with food safety protocols. ● Require suppliers to keep detailed records of their processes and components to enable traceability if there are any problems. ● Implement a testing program to verify the integrity of components and products received from suppliers.

There is a need to have a system where all suppliers are evaluated based on performances, this evaluation shows ratings of all suppliers. Supplier performance can be affected by : 1. Food safety incidences 2. Size of supply 3. Shape of materials 4. Colour variations 5. Presence of foreign material These above index will be used to judge if a particular supplier is meeting the specifications or not.

There are a number of ways to ensure food safety with suppliers. First, it's important to choose suppliers that have good food safety practices in place. These practices should be verified through third-party audits and certification programs. It's also important to have a food safety plan in place for all stages of the food supply chain, from production to delivery. Suppliers should have their own food safety plans that align with the company's plan. In addition, regular inspections and testing should be conducted to ensure that food safety standards are being met.