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Horsemeat response row deepens Published Date : 2013-10-15 15:09:34

Food manufacture has reported on the deepening row between EFRA and the Government regarding the governments handling of the horse meat crisis.

The poor horses are innocent in this scandal

What bothers me in all of this is that it is the food  industry who is left to pick up the pieces while various government departments pass the buck or kick things into the long grass through various enquiries etc.

Supply chain risk management is a key priority for most food businesses due to the brand protection risks and the requirements placed upon suppliers of UK private label food by retailers.

Government and regulators also have a role to play, I fear there will be lots of reports and grand words but nothing will fundamentally change, yet the industry remains exposed to future supply chain compliance failings and the food businesses caught in the cross-fire will suffer.

Government and regulators need to step up, deliver more and do a little less politics and grand standing.

When is it in your own interests? Published Date : 2013-10-14 22:26:56

The  report from the IGD ShopperVista research survey of consumers has been  recently quoted in a number of presentations, particularly by the IGD chief executive Joanne Denney-Finch. She quoted the report’s findings that six in 10 shoppers trusted food and grocery companies to do the right thing most of the time, but 73% thought they only did the right thing when forced to by law or when it was in their own interests.

The public concerns about traceability are unsurprising after recent fraud and sourcing problems and their expectation that food and grocery companies should know where every ingredient comes from is strongly felt by 80% of consumers.

As recent press stories about pizzas have confirmed this can be a great challenge.

To this challenge is added the calls for transparency.

But what form should this take?

Should companies create a web based reference point where consumers can look and find out the sources of the ingredients of their favourite ready meal……..and so can the producers/brand owner’s competitors.

Should the packaging carry the source information in the ingredient list? ……….but would the consumer accept the price increase to cover the frequent changes in packaging to enable the changes from Irish to English to Australian beef?

Could you guarantee that the ‘Irish’ packaging is all destroyed before the ‘English’ packs were introduced or would you run the risk of press headlines that accused you of lying to the consumers when an isotope test ‘exposed’ your mistake.

It has been suggested that independent organisations may offer judgements on company ethics and transparency thereby offering the consumers a source of information on which to judge. Will they be independent? Will their sources and methods be more reliable than the existing systems the food industry uses to protect their supply lines?

If such sources are offered to the consumers how could food companies protect themselves from inaccurate and unfair ratings?

The first step must surely be to strengthen their own positions and consider using Supplier Audit Management systems.  These systems benefit from having a wider view. Their experience is constantly building, and that quickly feeds back into refinements and developments that help to protect the food companies that use them.

Such systems as those offered by QADEX would reinforce a company’s control of risks in its ingredient supply chain and provide a means of increasing transparency and evidence for a rebuttal of inaccurate ratings.

Popular German food-rating app Barcoo to launch in UK Published Date : 2013-10-14 15:11:41

It is with trepidation that I read in this weeks grocer about the imminent launch in the UK of the controversial and popular mobile phone app that rates products on price, health, availability and environmental impact.

Consumers use Android phones as barcode scanners to access information. It’s MD admitted Barcoo relied on media publicity around its sometimes damning reviews, and admitted it had previously been threatened with legal action by some companies.

“That’s very much part of our business and we will look to do the same when we come here,” he warned.

Now it would be hypocritical of me to question the adoption of technology based solutions I to tend to worry that the impact on food businesses complaint investigation & complaint reporting systems will need to be carefully through as this is likely to be another source of “negative feedback” and is yet another factor to be considered from a brand protection perspective.

The Biggest Pizza in the world? Published Date : 2013-10-11 15:33:25

The Mail, a UK on line paper this week told us of “A pizza, produced in Ireland that contained 35 ingredients from 60 countries. “ This sounded like a fitting project for a good food chain audit and management system. A closer look at the article revealed more about this complex food supply chain the list of the ingredients and where they had come from, for example

Cheese: Switzerland Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Netherlands

Chicken: Brazil, Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Germany

Anchovies: Peru, Argentina, Italy, Falkland Islands, Spain, Iceland, Denmark.

Pepperoni: Poland, Italy, Ireland, UK, Denmark, USA

Vegetables ‘from a host of Mediterranean countries’

Olive oil: Italy, Greece, Spain.

Chilli Peppers: ‘Africa, Asia, South America’

This pizza was going to need an awfully big base to carry them all at once.

So how did they get it into the Oven?

Time for a closer look at the original National Audit Office report that was initiated to look into the Horse meat incident.

http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10255-001-Food-safety-and-authenticity.pdf

There we discovered that the list was showing the countries through which these ingredients had travelled or had been traded to be incorporated into a line of pizzas and included the seasonal alternative sources. What the NAO was illustrating was how much harder it had become to determine what was actually in food because of the long, international supply chains.

The agency came to the conclusion that whilst the systems for identifying and testing for risks to food safety was relatively mature and effective, the arrangements for authentication of food and ingredients was not.

The report points to confusions of responsibility between the UK’s three main departments involved in food regulation and protection. It highlights the complexity of sources of data and intelligence on food fraud and authentication.

The NAO report is primarily intended to inform the Government and its agencies, but the food industry up and down its complex chain can also take note.

Is it time for the food industry to centralise and share intelligence about the food chain? Especially where food fraud and food safety is concerned!

The ‘big pizza’ is also a useful example when the food industry talks to the politicians who are demanding that in future a product’s packaging should declare all the countries of origin of the ingredients.

Presence of Chloramphenicol in enzymes Published Date : 2013-10-10 11:49:57

There have been a number of alerts on the RASFF database recently relating to the presence of Chloramphenicol in enzymes intended for food use. The affected Enzymes have been distributed to Poland, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK etc.

The enzymes highlighted so far are Xylanase, Amylase, Cellulase and Pectinase however the list is expanding.

Although the levels of chloramphenicol carried over into food from enzyme preparations are likely to be very low, chloramphenical is a potential genotoxic carcinogen, which should therefore not be added to food at any level.

A press release is available on the association of manufacturers and formulators of enzymes website

I would advise food businesses to review their food specifications for the presence of these enzymes and then check with suppliers if any of their products are affected by the recent RASFF alerts.

QADEX customers can achieve  this by clicking the “raw material specifications search” option on your QADEX Vision system, if you need any assistance please call your QADEX Account Manager who can guide you through the process.

Interestingly when I was scanning  the RASFF database I noticed that this issue has arisen before so there is an opportunity within supply chain risk management to have predicted that this might occur again.

Traceability in a Fog Published Date : 2013-10-10 09:48:29

Experience has taught the food industry that Government legal traceability requirements are akin to operating in a fog.

If you stick to the one back/one forward requirement that is as far as you will see, so the chances are very slim of seeing that galloping horse coming out of the fog and hitting you.

The legislators probably thought that would be sufficient in a food borne outbreak or a contamination incident. Their inspection/outbreak investigation team would be able to target the suspected source and look at the traceability records. They may then look at ingredients suppliers as the potential primary vector, and look forward up the chain to close off the distribution of the suspected products.

The governments probably anticipated that their own inspection systems would be policing further up and down the chain so there would be no need for them to ask more of the food industry than that.

If there is one lesson to come out of the recent fraud cases it is that a one up/one down system is no protection at all of your  supply chain. That is why the companies asking for supply chain management systems are now positioned further and further back up the food chain.

That being the case it is becoming ever more apparent that those companies are looking to their own experiences in completing supplier self-audit questionnaires to drive their decisions on who to appoint.

Which questionnaires were the most straightforward to complete?

Were they relevant?

How knowledgeable and helpful was the back-up service?

How prompt were the reminders, and how astute were their technical staff in revealing weaknesses?

When you are in a fog the cats eyes are a help, but it is always better to have someone beside you who knows the road.

The good old days Published Date : 2013-10-06 01:00:24

As a visit to a food producer came to an end this week the relatively young factory manager was having a moan about the frequency of changes to their food safety certification requirements.

He was aghast when I described the situation 20 years ago when most major customer could, and did change their own food safety requirements……..frequently.

Then each could audit and inspect one after the other!

Ah the good old days!

While the cat’s away! Published Date : 2013-10-05 01:00:08

When the unresolved discussions in the USA between the President and the Congress resulted in the closure of most US Government activities there were some worries that food safety standards may suffer.

The reassurance that essential food safety inspections would still take place means that any serious outbreak and food safety recall would still take place to protect the public. Meat inspections will also continue, but the less essential inspections and investigations will not happen.

Why all the worry?

Good food safety practice doesn’t depend on the government.

Modern food safety systems are being ‘policed’ by the food industry.

Systems are being put in place by food and drink producers that are more stringent than government regulations and the companies are being audited more frequently than by

government inspection. Thankfully accredited certification schemes and supporting inspection professionals are still fully operational.

As are the food safety attorneys!

How do you deal with customer complaints? Published Date : 2013-10-03 19:43:52

Can you learn from your own experiences as a complainant?

A few days ago I was in a pub restaurant and ordered a ‘farmers pie’ that looked delicious on the menu

It wasn’t.

Rubbery crust, containing wallpaper paste the colour of gravy and a distinct lack of meat.

Step one – a discussion with the manager whilst presenting the evidence.

Step two – an offer of a replacement meal

Step three – declined offer due to loss of trust in the food quality

Step four- the removal of the charge from the bill.

That’s it, all done and dusted! But was it?

Did they have any complaints management system?

No request for my name and address

No explanation of cause or promise of future explanation.

Did the manager tell the chef?

Did the chef tell head office?

Did head office find the cause?

Had they have even a vestige of a complaint tracking system?

Would they have a complaint investigation?

I thought I would try to contact the company through its web site but as soon as I typed the word ‘complaint ‘ on the contact form the page froze – three times.

Fortunately the fact that the pub was named after a long departed famous racehorse did not raise any suspicions that this had any link to the Horsegate incident, after all there seemed to be no meat at all in the pie.

Whatever the restaurants parent company does now, my goodwill has galloped away, and the stable door hangs loosely off its hinges.

Training staff in the right and wrong way to meet greet and serve customers is only half of a good training course for food service staff. Training them to correctly handle a complaint, record it and ensure the customer leaves with the intention of coming back is an often forgotten priority.

I tried to explain to the manager ‘Even in the best ordered systems things go wrong.  How you deal with complaints and put things right is the yardstick that will measure your company’s survival’

Food for thinking? Published Date : 2013-10-01 20:57:10

I read the story in Food and Drink Europe about some of the Delegates at the International Congress of Nutrition protesting at the presence of the big multinational manufacturers of food and drink.

Did they think that the money lenders were trying to get back into the temple? The booboys and girls saw the multinationals as the sources of bad food, the founts of all obesity. Had they leapt out of their box of self-righteousness perhaps they would have seen the event as an opportunity.

The meeting was not only looking at obesity but also at malnutrition and the problems of child development from a poor diet.

Surely this was an opportunity to deliver solutions in clever ways.

Even the ‘do goody’ dieticians should have sat down and talked sensibly with the big brand producers.

The big food and beverage producers have all the resources to source the right ingredients and distribute the products efficiently around the world. They know how to make things tasty and attractive and they, as much as any dietary activist want to help their customers stay healthy and buying more product.

The biggest challenge for the nutritionists would not be persuading the big brands that producing products with a positive impact on health and obesity would be a good idea. The challenge is helping the consumer sort the wheat of good healthy products from the chaff of groundless claims.

Is there a recognized and respected professional body of nutritionists out there to provide some kind of certification or approval ?

Could they look at the ingredient specifications and pronounce  the new wonder product to be “safe, delicious and nutritionally good” to the world?

Are vaccination records on your horizon scan? Published Date : 2013-09-26 14:16:16

How can an outbreak of Hepatitis A in the USA be deemed to be of interest to anyone carrying out horizon scanning? This event emerged during June and July has been associated with Townsend Farms Organic Antioxidant Blend of frozen fruits that included pomegranate seeds originating from Turkey. Of course the main factors that make berries a regular vector is that they are often handpicked and often they are eaten ‘fresh’ without any cooking.

As many as 162 people have been infected across 10 US States mainly in the west and south west.

It is interesting to note that this followed an outbreak in Europe earlier in the year also related to pomegranate seeds that came from Egypt. A high number of these cases were people who consumed smoothies made with the seeds as an ingredient. Could information on that event have helped the US company to head-off the threat. Could they have looked at their raw material specifications and food supply chain to re-evaluated the supplier risk assessment for pomegranate seeds? Is there a link between the Turkish source and the Egyptian source of pomegranate kernels?

Some of the US infections were derived from contact in the home with infected people. Perhaps that may explain another outbreak amongst staff and customers of a restaurant in New York where 5 cases have been reported in September.

The local health officials are proposing vaccination of the staff and the at-risk customers and their families.

I wondered if there is any benefit in offering and requiring vaccination of staff in the food industry especially those who work with products likely to be contaminated.

The US VDC says ‘Foodborne transmission occurs when an HAV-infected food handler contaminates food during preparation or when food is contaminated during harvesting or processing……..’

So is there any benefit in vaccinating food handlers? Is it worth the food industry supporting and encouraging the development of vaccines and requiring a mandatory vaccination program amongst suppliers?

The general view at present regarding HAV vaccination is ‘no’, not even for food service workers. However the advice offered for food workers changes for countries or regions where a community-wide outbreak has been recognised or perhaps where it is endemic.

So are you getting high risk product from Turkey and Egypt? Are you asking for information on staff vaccine records? It may make good sense if the risk is high and the product is eaten fresh or uncooked?

It may already be on your radar as standard practice.

Asking Stupid Questions Published Date : 2013-09-22 21:24:13

I was visiting a food industry supplier last week on business unrelated to Qadex and I overheard two people, an MD and a Technical Manager, discussing the trials and tribulations of completing supplier self audit questionnaire forms.

“Why do they ask you such stupid questions” said one of the ladies “my products are ancillary to the process yet they ask me to answer questions that are totally unrelated?”

“I know” said the other “it’s just getting beyond reason. We were overwhelmed when the renewals  under BRC issue 6 got started.”

As well as being nosey I couldn’t help putting on my Qadex hat and asking if they got any Self- Audit Questionnaires through the QADEX system.

“Oh Qadex” said the TM “I’d love to know more about them” she said

“When I get asked to complete their SAQ’s I do them first,”

“Why” said the MD

“They are quick and straight forward to do and they seem to know what they are talking about”

“Don’t they hassle you?”

“Not unless my certifications are out of date and then they do it so nicely that you have to be grateful for the reminder”

The exchange left me thinking about the fact that in private as well as business life we are inundated with form filling. To open accounts, download useful information or satisfy the authorities we are filling out forms.

The problem is that so many companies just copy the forms they receive for sending out their own SAQ’s from their own customers. Easy for them, but confusing for the recipient.

Does anyone give prizes for good forms?

If you halve the complexity, double the relevance and apply a pinch of common sense then I’m sure that SAQ’s will be completed quicker. I’m certain you will have fewer embarrassing holes in your supplier SAQ files.

BRC publish draft standard for agents and brokers Published Date : 2013-09-20 13:07:21

For several years now when I have been given a soapbox to stand on and rant from I often raise concerns about the role of agents and brokers in supply chain risk management.

Those who have heard me speak will know that my position is that the responsible agents and brokers have a valuable role to play.

But the cowboys!

Now they are a different story.

Therefore I am pleased to see that the BRC have issued a draft standard for agents and brokers, so pleased that I have downloaded it and had a good read. And on balance it is a great step forward.

It follows the usual format of the BRC standards but I can see some real benefits in the following areas:

A requirement for a robust HACCP plan which includes:

Supplier approval QA checks on products Non conforming product management

As part of the HACCP there is a requirement to give consideration to the risk of Fraud e.g. substitution or deliberate adulteration.

There is also a robust section on Complaint Handling which raises the bar for complaint investigation and complaint reporting,

The section relating to supplier and sub contracted service management will again raise the bar for many agents and brokers. It contains the usual best practice including having a supplier approval procedure  based on the results of a supplier risk assessment which has taken account of:

the nature of the product and the associated risks customer specific requirements legislative requirements in the country of sale or importation of the product source or country of origin potential for adulteration or fraud the brand identity of products

The supplier approval procedure can be implemented using the usual tools and techniques such as on site supplier auditing, supplier monitoring, supplier self audit and by exception

legally enforceable warranties from the supplier a historical trading relationship supported by documented evidence of performance

reviews demonstrating satisfactory performance

Where approval is based on the above exceptions  the reasons for the exception shall be documented.

It will be interested to see how this is interpreted by certification bodies

Should the Chop Copper Get the Chop? Published Date : 2013-09-19 12:00:55

The advent of meat tests that can pinpoint the country of origin is a recent development that will help to ensure that Dutch pork is from the Netherlands and Scottish beef isn’t from Devon.

The “good old days” of “they’ll never know” are gone.

There are too many interested parties out there looking forward to catch out those who would try it on.

The retailers at the end of the chain will now be even more on their guard and looking for more testing by the processors. The national trade bodies fighting to protect their reputations and market shares will ensure that if it says Welsh Lamb on the label that‘s what’s in the packet. The media will be on their toes looking for another shock horror story to kick the retailers.

Finished product specifications are not targets.

They are legal requirements.

None the less it is intriguing to be told that a BBC researcher goes into one retail store and buys one pack of two pork chops that are from the wrong country!

The food supply chain traceability systems resulted in the meat processors/packers being quickly traced and their suppliers of British pork were soon identified. Subsequent reports by the retailer and the packer indicated that they couldn’t find any more mislabeled products and they express surprise.

Did a busy member of staff put a Dutch pork loin in the tray of British pork loins by mistake?

There are times when these stories begin to look like the basis for a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta. Whilst they pinpoint areas in the food supply chain that need to be tightened up and areas where supply chain testing may need to be expanded is this really an occasion where “The Chop chopper should get the chop for chopping the wrong chop when the researcher found the one right chop to show it was the wrong chop after all”?

Reducing demand for plastic carrier bags? Some pros and cons! Published Date : 2013-09-18 21:03:09

The weekend announcement by one political party that they want a mandatory charge on disposable plastic carrier bags, subject to public approval raises a number of questions.

At 5p a bag and with the profits going to charity the majority of consumers will think of it as a charity donation and feel good every time they buy one, two, three or even a dozen.

If the money is paid into the exchequer it may be expensive to collect, administer and police.

The price may then have to go up to £1 a bag.

The increased use of fabric re-usable bags may result in increased cross contamination.

When did you last put yours through the washing machine?

Did that chicken leak into your bag?

Would you buy some loose salad salad produce and bother to buy a plastic bag?

Another unexplained random outbreak of Campylobacter gets under way all for the sake of 5p!

Food Standards Agency 16th century style Published Date : 2013-09-16 10:22:48

When researching for a presentation next week at Campden BRI I came across an intriguing blog with the above title.

It is really fascinating to see what supplier risk assessment and supplier quality assurance looked like in the 16th century.

Salmonella from cooked ham? Published Date : 2013-09-13 07:07:07

The UK’s Food Standards Agency has announced that there is a current outbreak of Salmonella in England and Wales which may be associated with cooked ham sold by independent butchers.

With 51 confirmed cases in patients ranging from babies to pensioners the outbreak has been slowly expanding since the first cases were confirmed in Wales in August . The first cases have been found to be infected by an uncommon strain of Salmonella Typhimurium. Nine patients have been hospitalised.

It has been reported that Dr Judy Hart, consultant in communicable disease control for Public Health Wales, said: “The strain of salmonella we are investigating is very unusual so it is highly unlikely that the cases in England and Wales are coincidental.”

Experts from the Welsh and English Public Health, Food Standards and local environmental agencies are trying to find links between the cases and trace the source of the outbreak. However the reports are relatively conjectural.

It appears that the epidemiological process has found that cooked ham bought from local butchers  are a common link with some of the cases, but there have been no positive results from testing the suspect products and the retail sources. Reading between the lines it looks as though the traceability systems worked and a potential source of the ham was traced. Investigators found no positive test results, but poor hygiene practices were identified. The supplier voluntarily withdrew the product.

According to a national politician this outbreak is the result of budget cuts!

The combination of curing and cooking in the production of cooked ham would suggest that there are enough CCPs to control the hazard but tests carried out whilst researching the growth of salmonellas on cooked cured pork seemed to identify a weakness in this assumption.

M. Akman and R. W. A. Park concluded nearly 30 years ago “that cooked ham containing approximately 2·8 g. NaCl/100 g. H2O once infected is more likely to give rise to food poisoning than is ham with the higher salt content traditionally used.”

Could this outbreak be the result of cuts in salt levels?

Europe blocks efforts to reduce Campylobacter in poultry? Published Date : 2013-09-12 13:28:16

The FSA and the UK poultry industry announced this week that a program had been launched to further reduce the levels of Campylobacter in chicken…and other poultry. The Chief Executive of the FSA Catherine Brown was questioned by the BBC and in one of her answers she intimated that there were some problems with restrictions from the European Commission that were blocking some of their efforts.

Surely not!  The EC cannot want to prevent the reduction of bacterial contamination in food.

So what is going on?

Are we facing another EC interpretation of meat definitions and specifications that were said to have helped to stimulate the horse-meat scandal?

Is the EC dragging its feet to change the rules and regulations?

Or is it protecting another part of its bailiwick?

CFOs value reputation over short-term profits Published Date : 2013-09-11 09:17:07

As corporate activities face growing scrutiny, organisations are becoming increasingly prepared to forego short-term profits if this would protect their reputations in the long term, a CGMA survey has found.

According to the global poll, conducted by CIMA and AICPA, 76% of CFOs and other senior finance professionals believe that their organisations are prepared to make such a sacrifice.

The respondents cited three main reasons for this increasing preoccupation with reputational risk/brand protection:

Growing market demand for greater transparency Incidents at leading organisations or competitors leading to a loss of reputation The rise of social media, at long last I have seen a benefit of facebook.

This has to be an encouraging development for technical teams responsible for supply chain risk management. Food safety risk & supplier risk has been seen as a compliance issue for too long, if the CFO’s are waking up to the reputational risk to their business they may start to take investments in supplier management systems and supply chain compliance more seriously.

Families flocking to join the facebook food swappers Published Date : 2013-09-07 09:59:46

I am continuously looking out for emerging food supply chain risk. Therefore a Sunday Times article on the 1st September covering the growth in online sites and Facebook pages for food swappers caught my interest. These sites have made it easy for people to arrange to swap food with others in their area, providing them with produce they need while ensuring any surplus they have grown themselves does not go to waste. While I like the idea I can also see that there could be a lack of food safety risk assessment. Some of  these sites are also swapping homemade products such as cakes and jams, I can imagine that these will not be complying with the food information regulation. While I personally like this idea, I can also see a lot of risks.