Food Safety Programs – The Plus and Minus of a Good Thing

by | Oct 18, 2017 | Ice Cream Consulting

Many Types of Recognized Programs:

If you’re in the dairy or consumable goods business and make a product sold in grocery stores, then you’ve probably heard that many of the national retail chains will soon require your product to be made in a facility operating under a recognized Food Safety Program. There are a number to choose from including HACCP, SQF and GFSI, so be sure to go to the retailer’s website to see the program they recognize.

A manufacturer with a fully implemented food safety program will be able to sell to a major retailer, while the smaller manufacturer may not, because of the cost to implement and maintain the program. Why are retailers making this request?  Mainly in part because of a past tragedy   resulting in deaths from eating ice cream. Crazy, you bet. The manufacturer was Blue Bell who evidently did not seriously consider that making a consumable good under unsanitary conditions and with a lack of good manufacturing practices resulted in products tainted with Listeria (Listeriosis), read more on this in a past article. What’s worse is BB already had a safety program in place, so why critical control points and issues weren’t addressed earlier, remain a mystery.

Fall Out:

What’s unfortunate about retailers making the requirement to have a program in place is, it’s likely the smaller, more small batch and boutique products may not be seen on the shelf. Implementing and managing a certified food safety program, is expensive and out of scope for the small manufacturer. A retailer may be implementing a policy, due to their concerns of liability risk, recalling product or simply mitigating future health issues.

The manufacturer following a safety program, represents a facility where employees are better trained, have ongoing education in sanitation procedure and monitored by a third party company in the form of ongoing facility inspections. Simply relying on the FDA to be the sole inspection agency of a food facility are long over, keep in mind the FDA was aware of the sanitation issues in the BB facility(s), but waited to long to take a responsible position.

Friend or Foe:

I view food safety programs as essential and for the manufacturer, good to brag about. If followed and done correctly, can almost guarantee a “clean operation”. With a program in place procedures on inbound ingredients to the ice cream plant are recorded and monitored, as are the finished goods being shipped from the facility. The goal of following a certified program, is a lowered risk in bacteria contamination, both entering or originating in a food grade facility. The start-up and implementation of a program is tedious, lengthy and added expense, but the payoff can be rewarding in multiple ways.

Who Benefits:

Everyone, a certification can be also used as a marketing tool, to show customers that products are manufactured at the highest quality standards. It will open road blocks with national retailers, signify your product is safe to consume and represent employee pride in what they make on a daily basis.          

Food Safety Program Overview:

    • Choose a food safety program that you can afford and offers national or global recognition
    • Interview the organization to better understand their services, training and hands on involvement
    • Conduct an initial audit of your facility with a certified 3rd party auditor to better understand areas of concern and cost to address
    • Hire a full time employee to implement and conduct the necessary tasks plus manage the program, a background in quality control is recommended.
    • Create an ingredient and packaging program, where inbound items will have supporting documents including specification and certificate of analysis data
    • Create a schedule A, ingredient catalog to show data specifications on all ingredients. Update as needed  
    • Create a schedule B, finished goods catalog to show each finished good supported with a schedule A data document
    • Create a procedure where all manufactured products are randomly pulled during production to monitor targets such as date code, plant number, weight and microbiological testing from a in-house lab (optional)
    • Conduct random internal facility inspections and audit each area of the facility including, wet and dry warehouse storage, refrigerated rooms, receiving and loading dock and daily paperwork on received ingredients

Step By Step Manuals Available at All Manufacturing Equipment:

(update on a regular basis)

    • Operators Manual on how to use each piece of manufacturing equipment
    • Process Manual on each product manufactured under one roof  
    • Recall Procedure Manual that will include all departments of the company
    • Opening procedures manual for each department in manufacturing
    • Closing procedures manual for each department in manufacturing

If you are considering to invest and operate under a recognized food safety program, contact Darryl. He will walk you through the steps of the process to get you on the right path for a clean food facility.

Darryl David
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