Food for Thought - The LRQA Food Sector Blog

Interview with Catherine Francois - Director Food Safety Programmes - Consumer Goods Forum

2010-02-26T05:00:00.000-08:00

Catherine Francois is the Director Food Safety Programmes for the Consumer Goods Forum. Catherine is one of the food sector’s most influential figures in the area of food standards and schemes. She has played an integral part in the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) work on harmonising global food safety guidelines. We talked to her yesterday on some of the key food safety issues.

The podcast interview with Catherine can be listened to or downloaded here

Catherine started off by telling us some of the history behind the GFSI

Back in the year 2000, food safety was very much top of mind with consumers around the world, there had been a whole series of several high profile recalls, quarantines, and a lot of negative publicity in addition to food safety scares, such as BSE, dioxins and that sort of thing. The GFSI is actually managed by the Consumer Goods Forum, which is an international food business association working with retailers and manufacturers from around the world, and their CEO’s really took the decision that consumer trust needed to be strengthened, it needed to be maintained and at the same time the supply chain needed to be made safer and they saw the ideal way to do that was through the harmonisation of food safety standards, which could at the same time could also drive cost efficiency for businesses in the supply chain, and that’s really why the Global Food Safety Initiative was created back in 2000.

She also talked about the process that the GFSI has gone through in harmonising the world’s multiple food safety standards and schemes

If we go back to 2000, a lot of companies had their own internal food safety schemes, and we were actually seeing the migration of these internal schemes into national or regional schemes, for example, the British retailers all came together and decided to create one single food safety scheme for the UK, and this was also happening in other parts of the world, such as with SQF. So when we started the Global Food Safety Initiative back in 2000, what we actually started to do was look at about 200 different food safety schemes that existed around the world, and we looked at various options, including creating one single food safety standard that could be used internationally. After a lot of discussion and debate we decided that this actually would be very difficult to implement because of cultural and historical differences, and so we decided to move towards a benchmarking model. Essentially what we put in to place is the Guidance Document, our key tool within the Global Food Safety Initiative. The Guidance Document contains all of the key food safety requirements believed to be absolutely fundamental in managing food safety. These requirements are then used to benchmark existing food safety schemes and standards, to make sure that they meet these GFSI requirements and then we can determine the equivalence of the content of these schemes to the Guidance Document and communicate on the outcome.

Catherine is also responsible for the Global Food Safety Conference. She talked about the conference, including this year’s Washington D.C. event.

The Global Food Safety Conference was launched in 2001 and it’s really the platform where we invite all of the different key stakeholders who are involved in food safety to come together to really create a dialogue and also to try to build the foundations and the road map for moving forward, in terms of how we would like to see food safety managed around the world. It’s a platform for bringing together the public and the private sector, but also all of the different stakeholders along the supply chain. When we started the event in 2001, we had just over 100 people attending that event which took place in Geneva, and over the last nine years we have seen the event develop so that our recent event in Washington had 681 attendees from 39 different countries, so a truly international event and we very much hope that this will continue to grow as we move forward. We have been able to demonstrate the value of this event by providing the opportunity for individuals to come along and to exchange with their peers, to talk about best practices in food safety and to learn about the leading edge science and innovation in food safety that’s happening right now in our industry. This is an annual event and we are very excited to be able to host our next event in London in 2011, from the 16th to the 18th February. The theme of the event will be focused on Creating a Global Food Safety Culture and it will be our tenth event and as such it will be a celebration of the last ten years of the Global Food Safety Initiative.

This week, the GFSI approved FSSC 22000, the newest global food safety scheme. Catherine talked about FSSC 22000 and the work between the GFSI and the FSSC team

We have had a very productive relationship with the FSSC team over the last year or so now, with a very good dialogue during the benchmarking process to reach the full approval of the FSSC scheme against the GFSI requirements. The key to that has obviously been the dialogue with the manufacturers, who have been driving the process such as Danone, Kraft, Nestlé and Unilever, and who have really been able to build the support within their own communities for this scheme. GFSI is a multi stakeholder initiative, and so we very much value their input and their contribution in the development of this scheme, and the benchmarking process and we look forward to working with them moving forward. We look forward to seeing how it will be adopted in the marketplace.

Catherine talked about the importance of third-party certification in ensuring global food safety.

Third party certification is obviously key to the ongoing success of the Global Food Safety Initiative, and the schemes that are working within that framework. It allows for a consistent, global approach to be made to food safety audits, which can be more cost effective for businesses. Obviously, there are challenges that need to be overcome, I think the biggest one is the question of auditor competence, and we will be focusing hard on this in the future. One of our key objectives in the future is to be looking at how we can really build a consistent framework for managing auditor competence in the future, to make sure that third party certification, moving forward, continues to be a very credible option for businesses to use when they are managing food safety.

An Integrated Approach to the Food Sector

2010-02-25T06:51:00.000-08:00

One of the largest global food organisations is pioneering a change in the sector. With many food companies focussing all of their energy, resources and time on food safety, this European giant is taking a holistic, integrated look at all of the issues that might impact on both the industry and on their business.

This global organisation started with their Quality Management System (QMS), rolling out ISO 9001 across their global operations. They followed that up by integrating their Environmental Management Systems (EMS) into their overall management system and gaining ISO 14001 certification across all of their global sites.

Recently, their focus on Health and Safety Management Systems has increased, with their OHSAS 18001 systems being certified at a number of their global locations. They are also looking at a “gap analysis” globally to identify where best practice can be implemented to further optimise their Health and Safety systems.
What about Food Safety you ask? This organisation has always featured food safety as one of their core concerns. They address food safety issues both through their existing integrated management systems as well as through specific Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS), such as ISO 22000.
Lastly, by no means are they standing still. In March, we at LRQA will be working with them on rolling out ISO 22000 across all of their global sites. And, discussions are always on-going regarding their CSR report.
By looking at their risks, both existing and potential ones, this organisation has been able to engage their stakeholders, both internal and external. An integrated, global management system (with QMS, EMS, OHSAS and FSMS as its components) means that issues are being addressed proactively with continual improvement a way of doing business.

The Investment of Getting it Right vs. The Expense of Getting it Wrong

2010-02-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

Scandal sells news. Tiger Woods and Toyota have filled our newspapers and screens over the past few weeks. The popular media highlight every detail and add rumour and intrigue at a dizzying rate, from news channels to late night interviews, through the constant retelling of the story. More and more in the past few years the same glare of scandal has been aimed at the food industry, and suppliers, processors and the service industries have come under scrutiny.
The food industry has probably never had such a critical audience. Scandal alarms us but also informs and as consumers we want to know that we and our families are bring protected. While the media alerts us to the big stories the smaller, less scandal filled details are also important. In February, LRQA Food Month, the USDA issued 7 recalls including concerns over salmonella in salami, E.Coli in 4.9 millions tons of beef and veal and potential allergens in soy flour.
The good news is that these recalls have headed off scandal but a recall is never good news and still points to the potential for harm to the consumer.
More and more food companies are not looking at the cost of an effective food safety management system but the potentially catastrophic consequences of not having one. When brand, reputation, the stigma of scandal and sometime the tragedy of harm to their customers are weighed up the control of effective processes for food safety under a management system is seen as a bare minimum. For this reason as the media reports on food safety issues have increased. LRQA has seen a corresponding upturn in interest from major global food companies in external, independent verification of their systems for managing food safety. The development of food safety programs, such as FSSC 22000, have brought all these issues to a timely convergence – an increasingly aware and concerned consumer linked with a probing and unrelenting media on the one side ,and the value of robust scrutiny against a recognized food standard by a global certification body like LRQA on the other. With the responsibility of food safety in my hands and that formula in front of me I know what I’d do!

Food Safety - Looking at the Regions

2010-02-23T05:45:00.000-08:00

A lot of the global focus on food safety has been around the US and China over the last year. This post takes a look at the world's latest headlines on Food Safety - region by region.

Middle East

UAE Minister of Environment and Water Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad opened the fifth Dubai International Food Safety Conference with some startling facts, including

The World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that there are more than 250 different food-borne diseases, more than 30% of the world population is suffering from these diseases and proves fatal for 2.2 million people annually.

On what the UAE is doing to address food safety issues, he said,

This will be followed by unifying the food inspection and control procedures in the country. A food-borne diseases surveillance system will be established, and applied research and studies in the area of food safety will be conducted in collaboration with private sector, universities, and research centres.

Asia

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, attending the first plenary session of the food safety commission in Beijing, said:

Food is essential, and safety should be a top priority for food. Food safety is closely related to people's life and health and economic development and social harmony.

He also urged "improvement in food safety standards and the food system production check-ups, risk evaluation, accident prevention and emergency response."

Americas

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier this year that it’s moving forward with creating national mandatory safety standards for the growing, harvesting and packaging of fresh fruits and vegetables. To get the process started, last week, the Produce Safety Project and Cornell University invited FDA and USDA officials along with local growers, extension agents, food retailers and consultants for the first of four national stakeholders’ discussion series.
Robert Hadad of Cornell Vegetable Program sees "such federal regulations as “a huge undertaking” that is far more complicated and involved than the National Organic Program, which took years to develop and implement."

Global

Jürgen Matern, a vice president of German cash and carry giant Metro AG, is to take over chairmanship of the Global Food Safety Initiative board.
The appointment was announced at the Global Food Safety Conference in Washington. Marten will take over the chair immediately, replacing J.P. Suarez, of Wal-Mart.

“The board is delighted that Jürgen has agreed to take over this role, which occurs at an important time for GFSI," said Suarez.

Brazil and the Food Sector, one step at a time

2010-02-22T04:40:00.000-08:00

For a long time the food and beverage industry has been seen as not interested in embracing management systems (MS)standards such as ISO 9001. Apparently, the reason behind could be the number of regulations they have to follow; which until not that much time ago has given the impression that controlling the quality of their products was enough to keep them in business.
It was only more recently that they started thinking about the potential damage to their brand reputation that food safety scares could cause.
Perhaps another reason which has convinced the food industry sector to consider adopting a management systems approach to help them keep their business under control is the fact that in order to be more competitive, food organisations started seeking different alternatives to traditional suppliers; some of them being used for decades.
These new suppliers caused supply chains to become more complex to control, generating not only higher but more complex risks which demand a more robust system to manage them.
In line with that, until very recently major players in the market used their own protocols to assess their suppliers. This was time consuming and imposed costs to suppliers as such protocols were not mutually accepted by different buyers.
In terms of adopting a system to improve their own internal controls; there were those that had already identified the need to have a more structured and documented system to demonstrate to their customers their capability to deliver quality and compliance to contractually agreed specifications and went for ISO 9000 certification.
In Brazil , LRQA's first contract with the food and beverage industry came in 1992 with a global cocoa powder and butter producer with sites in Ilhéus and São Paulo. With the support of the UK we got our local assessor force trained for the food sector, in line with the main client interest at that time, which was compliance with ISO 9002. Over the years we managed to get the major players in the citrus industry so that by the year 2000 we were working with almost all of the key regional organisations located in Brazil. Other important organisations also decided to implement ISO 9001 in the alcoholic drinks sector with certification by LRQA delivered to several large organisation in the sector. Further, sugar mills across Brazil also recognised the benefits of LRQA's unique Business Assurance approach and began working with us.
If at the beginning the interest was just compliance to the specified standard; with time, maturity and education, large organisations across Brazil have started to consider the use of management systems to improve overall organisational performance, achieving customer and client expectations, promoting continual improvement, demonstrating a commitment to quality, or in other words continued evaluation of customers’ performance to sustain and improve results.
With more and more food safety scares appearing in the press and the availability of standards such as FSSC 22000, users of MS in the food/beverage sector are placing more importance on reducing risks which can have a direct impact on their brand reputation, risks which could eventually put their company out of business.
Focusing on the Brazil auditing and certification market, LRQA's Business Assurance approach has us very optimistic regarding the food and beverage sector. Here are some of the reasons for our optimism:
The Potential:
• Brazil has the largest productive land area (size of the whole Europe) for growing almost any type of vegetables and fruits (good weather, well distributed and abundance of fresh water, among other factors)
• Our food industry sector is well developed also in the processed food area and able to produce food for export in large scale and at a competitive price ( refer to figures given below )
• Brazil as a sugar and ethanol producer: the number of sugar mills just in the State of São Paulo is increasing from the current 350 to 430 by year 2012 what will enlarge our ability to export alcohol as a fuel alternative.
• Brazil has the largest cattle herd ( over 180 million ), is one of the largest exporters of cow meat as well as pork and chicken.
• Organic agriculture is becoming an important market and we are quite developed in this area : consider coffee, cocoa, sugar and vegetables.
• Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of concentrate orange juice, not mentioning tropical exotic fruit juices.
• Wine sector is achieving quality and productivity that in medium term future will place Brazil as an important exporter.
• The presences of international food or drink giants like Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, Mars, (you name it) in our Country is a good sign of the importance of Brazil.
• Despite the fact that we have 9,000 Km of sea coast fishing farms are producing an important range of different fishes for which there is internal and external markets

2000-2008, Brazil and the Food and Beverage Industry:

                                                        2000          2008       Variance

Brazil population ( millions ) :            171.3          192.1       12.1%

Exports ( Total in USD bi)                 55.1          197.9        259%

Exports
( Food/Beverage USD Billions)           7.7           33.3          333%

Imports
(Total in USD Billions )                    55.8           173.2         210%

Imports
( Food/Beverage USD Billions)         1.6              3.4          113%

Brazil is a large food exporter to markets such as Europe, Asia and the Americas and this means there is and there will be demand for auditing and certification services.
With a global force of almost 500 food sector assessors, a commitment from LRQA's global senior management to the food sector and technical expertise on both a regional and global level, we are confident that we can meet the rapidly changing needs of Brazil's food sector organisations.

Doing more with much less

2010-02-19T00:15:00.000-08:00

When it comes to growth, many experts hope that Asia will pull the world out of recession. Surprisingly, not many people in the western world realize that Asia-Pacific’s annual population growth has fallen to 1.1%, the lowest rate among the world’s developing region according to the United Nations (UN).
Even with the falling birth rates and emigration, some Asian countries are struggling to feed the poor. Poverty and hunger may cause political instability and will slow down economic growth. The UN also noted that food stability will be a key issue to the Asian growth story.

Global warming and natural disasters also ruined the production of main staples such as rice. Rice prices at one stage went up by 150%. According to the UN, the region had a total of 28 major earthquakes, floods and typhoons affecting more than 101 million people, killing more than 223,000 and causing more than $103 billion worth of damage in 2008 alone.
It is also worth noting that rapid industrialization of many parts of the region continue to take a toll on the environment. In China and Vietnam, between 1992 and 2002, for example, industrial water withdrawal more than tripled. Water has also becoming a scarce commodity in the industry and farmers must fight for water allocation to irrigate their crops.
International food companies such as Coca-Cola, Foster’s and Unilever understand their social obligation. They are looking at more efficient use of water to allow the community to irrigate their farmland. To reduce the impact of climate change, factories are also looking at minimising their electricity consumption and investing in alternative energy sources. Most people will agree that environmental issues and food production are highly correlated and they are not mutually exclusive.
Food is such a basic human need and even school children understand it. In my recent visit to a Hong Kong school, I was fascinated by the children’s work. One boy proudly showed me his painting with a big slogan: “We can do more by using less.” His friends created a depiction of fish in the ocean and titled the work as ‘sustainable fishing.’ A little girl coloured the rice fields green and wrote down ‘responsible farming’ on the top of the paper. The future of these children will depend on adequate supplies of food and water. They are sending important messages to the community.

A Webinar and a Lecture

2010-02-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I delivered a presentation in a Live webinar organised by LRQA. It was the third food safety webinar and this time we had even more attendees (with over 170 in total) then the previous one. With two sessions all time zones were covered so we had participants from around the globe.
I must say a webinar is always special. Knowing that so many people are listening without seeing or hearing them can make you nervous but on the other hand it is a great tool to provide information to a large group in a very convenient and cost effective manner.
So talking about green house gas and cost reduction, we did a good job yesterday!
The webinar covered several topics. Supply chain management, current and future concerns in the food chain, the current status of FSSC 22000 and the most important outcome of the GFSI Global Food Safety conference in Washington. There was a question and answer session at the end and I must say the questions were very good. It shows that the global food community is actively working on further improvement of assurance in the supply chain. And that Food Safety is still the most important concern but that also other issues like sustainability, social responsibility and security become more and more important. This shows that solutions like supply chain management and risk management are very important.
Tomorrow there is another challenge. The Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the world's leading Agricultural Universities, is organising a course for representatives of the (semi) public sector (most food authorities) of European countries that are not (yet) members of the European Union. There will be approx. 50 participants, from Albania, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The objective of this course is to exchange knowledge and experience on food safety systems in the broadest range. I have been asked to deliver a guest lecture with the title “Chain of Custody and private standards in the food supply chain”. This is very interesting and important for two reasons:
First of all most of these countries are emerging as supplier of food ingredients and food products. It is important to support them and share expertise and experience in how to achieve the necessary level of food safety assurance. And it is absolutely not only them learning from us, but also we learning from them!
Secondly there is a lot to win in the cooperation with Food Authorities with private standard owners, certification bodies and food manufacturers. Especially in the field of harmonization of standards and joining efforts in the multiple audits that are conducted at the moment. I am looking forward to meeting the representatives of these countries and to sharing experiences and knowledge and hope to learn a lot from them and their challenging emerging food markets.

175 Delegates attend LRQA Food Sector Webinar

2010-02-17T08:52:00.000-08:00

Cor Groenveld, one of the world's leading global food safety experts, delivered the 3rd LRQA food sector webinar, "Assurance in the Food Supply Chain" yesterday. The webinar was delivered twice, once at 9 am UK time and again at 12 noon EST (US) to allow global participants to choose the time that best suits them.

The 60 minute webinar featured over 175 delegates between the two sessions, with the afternoon session topping 100 people! After Cor's presentation, the Question and Answer sessions proved to be very interactive, with each session featuring over 20 audience questions.

Proving that the food sector is about so much more than just food safety, delegate questions included topics as diverse as supply chain, security, organics and quality management systems. That said, FSSC 22000 had the most interest with delegates wanting to know the status of GFSI accreditation (coming soon, we are told) for the scheme.
Cor will be blogging here tomorrow on the webinar, see you then. We will also be providing links to the webinar for viewing, listening and downloading.

Words into Actions – moving from inspections to process based Assessments

2010-02-17T01:16:00.000-08:00

ISO 22000, PAS 220 and FSSC 22000 are changing the world of Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) assessments. The inspection method, long the standard bearer in FSMS assessments, is slowly giving way to the process based assessment. Put simply, the checklist approach is being replaced by one that takes a more in-depth look at the processes behind the results.
That was one of the issues discussed last week at LRQA’s FSMS Trainers Course in Orlando, Florida. Vel Pillay, Food Safety Program Manager - Americas, Erasmo Salazar, ISO 22000 Lead Assessor and Trainer from Mexico and Dave Sherring, UK Trainer Manager and course designer, delivered the latest ISO 22000 Auditor/Lead Auditor course to a group of clients from an interesting range of organisations across the food supply chain; including fruit processing, chemical processing and even the US Army.
The IRCA approved training course enables participants to develop and refine their audit skills in relation to FSMS based on ISO 22000.
Vel also delivered a session on the future of FSMS, FSSC 22000, including the introduction of PAS 220 to the mix and how FSSC 22000 is increasingly being applied by the world’s leading food organisations.
The feedback was positive, with delegates being able to relate the discussions and key learnings directly to their own organisation.

Food Safety and Business Assurance

2010-02-15T10:09:00.000-08:00

Recently, a food manufacturing client asked me why they needed a FSSC 22000 management system certification and Business Assurance from LRQA. The conversation was all about “what could a certified management system approach offer that a checklist approach could not?”

To answer this question, we need to first go back to a clear definition of management systems. Management systems can be defined as a company’s internal processes that help them safeguard their current and future business and provide confidence that they are meeting the needs of their internal stakeholders and promises they have made to their customers. Personally, I like the definition supplied by Henri Fayol from the book General and Industry Management, “Management Systems play a part in all undertakings, large or small, industrial, commercial, political, religious, or any other.”

Management Systems = Certification = Business Assurance

LRQA, through its unique assessment approach we call Business Assurance, has helped companies through the process of bringing together the two worlds of how they run their company and management systems/certification. LRQA clients understand that certification doesn’t exist apart from how the company conducts its day to day operations. LRQA clients understand how to leverage their ISO certified management systems with their business operations to increase confidence, discipline and overall improvement in the business.

So, now we come back to the original question. “Does my company need certification?” Well based on the above definition of management systems, the question isn’t about whether you should have a management system - because every company or undertaking already has one, whether they know it or not. The real question is, “Is your management system a good one or a bad one. Now, I can help you answer that question!

The simple answer to the question is that LRQA helps clients improve their management systems and achieve business objectives via our certification approach called Business Assurance. The original question seems a little silly now doesn’t it?

Now back to my friends at the food company, and a short story I’d like to tell you. This company had years of experience with food safety audits utilizing checklist approaches. They had passed all their checklist audits with flying colors and were extremely proud of their record. We began the certification process with one of their best-performing locations.

Fast forward a few months, LRQA completed the Stage 2 assessment and presented our findings and recommendations at the closing meeting. Imagine their surprise when they discovered they had some major problems to address, but why? The reason is that FSSC 22000 included a number of processes that checklists don’t.

How did this benefit that organization, you ask? The company was able to clearly see where there was work to be done in integrating their food safety strategy and their overall business. Not something that a checklist would have helped with.

The food company quickly realized that to truly manage risk and food safety, not only was it about having the right food safety management program in place – but having that program verified by a reputable, trusted body with a global footprint, LRQA.

In sales at LRQA, I get asked the same question in various forms every day. Basically, “Why does my company XYZ need certification?” Answer: Certification by LRQA means that your company recognizes its management systems are linked with its corporate identify and are critical to helping it achieve its business objectives and meet stakeholder commitments, and as such, are independently certified by a registrar committed to helping clients achieve these objectives by effectively managing risks and costs, aligning investments and improving service via their managing systems.

To reiterate, a company must use its management system to achieve business objectives the above 4 key areas:

1. Manage Risk
2. Manage Costs
3. Align Investments
4. Improve Service

The degree to which a company achieves these objectives is linked to the effectiveness of its management system which is externally verified by certification. If you are a food company, aligning your food safety strategy (Managing Risk) with business objectives must be achieved if optimum results are hoped to be achieved.
With LRQA and FSSC 22000, your company will have the confidence they are working with a registrar or certification body that understands food safety is more than just a bad reputation. Food safety incidents can result in death or illness, costly recalls, bad press, decreased consumer confidence and damaged brand value. LRQA helps organizations develop confidence to addressing risk and food safety as part of their business processes. And don’t forget, having a registrar who understands your business becomes more important as the likelihood of risk grows and the processes to manage them effectively become more complex, especially as levels of food safety vary from country to country with increased globalization.
Now I have just given you a few business strategy reasons for why a company would welcome FSSC 22000 as part of their overall competitive strategy. However, there are a host of technical reasons I encourage you understand by visiting www.lrqausa.com/food which has additional educational content including webinars and white papers.

TRUST comes by Food and leaves by Horse

2010-02-12T01:49:00.000-08:00

A deliberate typo in relation to last week’s Global Food Safety Conference. Yet a relevant typo, as the issue is “who do you trust?” I will explain later.
It has struck me that GFSI has been very successful in creating awareness and acceptance in bringing food safety on the management agenda. Even so successful, that many customers today are regaining confidence that food safety risks are being managed. This is a great achievement and is a direct result of tremendous efforts across the entire supply chain. We at LRQA pride ourselves in being part of this success. It does not mean that we now can relax. Maintaining rigorous food safety standards, performing independent and experienced audits, and supporting our clients in continuous improvement and management of change, all remain as much a challenge as they were before.
A single lapse of attention and controls, and a major food safety incident may hit the market with devastating impact on the parties involved. We at LRQA set ourselves clear goals every day at every audit; avoid these disasters, within the scope of our work. Companies, their clients and their suppliers need to have trust in our work, and in the work of our clients.
Food incidents can have tremendous impacts on lives, the health of people affected, corporate share prices, revenues and even top management career opportunities. Trust leaves by horse…
We do not want to have our name associated with this.
Today, I now wonder as to what is next?
If we accept that we manage to control food safety. Are we done? No
Our clients, within and outside the food sector, see themselves faced with questions on their “sustainability”. What is their impact on the use of scarce resources like water, energy, land and also labour? How much CO2 are they emitting? Are they causing deforestation? Do they employ small children at excruciating working hours, without proper payments and decent labour conditions.
NGO’s, governments, customers and their own employees ask for transparency. This applies also in the food sector. The GFSI - Global Food Safety Initiative may even consider changing their name to the Global Food Sustainability Initiative.
The question again arises, when they come forward with their claims on sustainability: “who says so?” A very valid question. In other words – whom do you trust? In a time when every day a new “green” label comes to light. Carbon foot prints of products, claims of carbon-neutrality.
Would you trust a company supplying “green” energy from their wind mills, if they at the same time produce 100 times more energy from other, climate-unfriendly power plants? All without effective countermeasures? What does a claim of x CO2 per product tell you, if you have no idea about the overall behaviour of the supplier?
We at LRQA are heavily involved in working with our clients to define clear and reliable criteria for their sustainability and, even more important, of their suppliers. We apply the same audit process and audit qualifications to verify and certify the claims on sustainability of our clients, to build trust.
We believe that the market will respond in a similar way to a major breach of trust of sustainability of their supplier. Be it child labour, be it environmental pollution, be it excessive CO2 emissions or any other number of complex areas of business, LRQA will help our clients in building trust, but not by granting a certificate only. A company making serious claims should be open for serious audits. Together we build trust – whether it may come by foot or by food.

GFSI, FSSC 22000 and Washington, D.C.

2010-02-11T01:57:00.000-08:00

I just returned from the GFSI Food Safety Conference that was held last week in Washington DC. With a few days delay because as you all will know the weather conditions were extreme. It snowed for more then 30 hours this weekend and the centre of the city had 70 cm…
The conference was one of the best ever organised by GFSI. Especially because it was held for the first time in the USA. Third party certification in the USA is emerging. Mainly because the retailers and large food manufacturers realise that robust systems are needed to achieve the highest level of assurance of food safety and quality in the food supply chain.
In the past the food industry in the US mainly relied on audits against private schemes and on the fact that food companies were approved by the authorities like the FDA and the USDA. But the growing need to improve food safety systems and to have an independent verification system by accredited third party audit companies has changed this. And not in the last place because of a number of severe food incidents taking place in several countries.
In Europe we had already the GFSI system of recognizing Food Safety Certification schemes. And retailers in the USA (like WalMart) are starting to use the GFSI approach too. That means that they require their suppliers to have an accredited third party certification in place against one of the GFSI recognized schemes.
It is also important to see what the manufacturers are doing. What I see is that a lot of them want to use the FSSC 22000 scheme. This scheme is built on ISO 22000 (standard for Food Safety Management Systems) and PAS 220 (standard for prerequisite programmes for Food manufacturers). The scheme is already provisionally approved by GFSI and the full approval was on the agenda of the GFSI Board meeting scheduled last Friday in…….Washington. And you might guess it, the snow changed all of those plans. Due to the weather conditions the meeting was postponed. I hope the Board will be able to take this decision in the coming weeks. But waiting on this, unaccredited FSSC 22000 can already take place and certification bodies will start the accreditation process this year.
After my presentation in Washington on Food Supply Chain Assurance I often got the question what makes FSSC 22000 different then the other GFSI recognised schemes. I think the content of the schemes are very similar but FSSC 22000 is based on truly independent and international standards and the Foundation that owns the scheme is a non profit organisation.

Building Consumer Trust through Assurance

2010-02-10T04:46:00.000-08:00

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) conference that took place last week in Washington D.C. is a very timely one. According to the IBM Consumer Confidence Survey conducted in June 2009, 80% of consumers do not trust their food. This is because of breakdowns in food safety protocols and fraud perpetrated by unscrupulous manufacturers that eroded consumer confidence.

The food industry has changed over the years and tremendous progress has been made in the way we look at identifying issues associated with food safety. The industry has moved from a reactive inspection based approach to a more proactive approach of identifying, evaluating and controlling physical, chemical and microbiological hazards at all stages of the process.
Industry has also realized that food safety programmes are “non competitive” and has taken steps to be more proactive by ensuring that sufficient information on issues concerning food safety is available throughout the food chain and effectively communicated externally as well as internally.
Issues that industry still face are: 1)lack of transparency along the food chain, 2) large number of standards and lack of agreement on what standard to use during an assessment and 3) global sourcing of both ingredients and finished products.
The GFSI has taken several steps to harmonize by benchmarking standards to be used by the industry. Food safety experts at the conference stressed the importance of more emphasis of proactive measures to mitigate or eliminate hazards and the need to be more transparent all along the food chain. These steps will certainly help in moving towards increased consumer confidence.

Food Safety - Stakeholder Views

2010-02-09T03:24:00.000-08:00

The stakeholders for food safety are numerous. This blog takes a look at the latest news and views from some of those groups, including some stakeholders that are less obvious:

Consumer activists

Food Safety Defense Attorneys

Small Businesses

Meat Suppliers

Non governmental organisations (NGO's)

As you can see, the issues and their effects on stakeholder groups varies. One thing remains constant, the need for transparency across the food supply chain. Only with that transparency can the sector begin to win back stakeholder trust. Ultimately, trust leads to confidence, which is in short supply in the food sector.
The recent food safety scares have led to action on the part of the global food industry. I was in Washington D.C. last week at the Global Food Safety Conference and the 700 delegates in attendance from organisations around the the globe proved that the issues are real and are being taken seriously.
It is important that food safety stakeholders know the truth about their industry. Organisations, governments and regulators, they all care! Companies want nothing more than their supply chain to be safe. They are willing to invest people and time to get it right. The complexity of global food supply chains means that large, global organisations and their corporate reputation are only as good as the weakest point in their supply chain. That weakest point could be anywhere, as recent scares have shown.
In today's world, it is not enough for food sector organisations to say what they are doing or even do what they are doing. Independent assurance of food supply chains is crucial if the sector is to restore stakeholder confidence. So, food organisations need to take action, have a comprehensive food safety management system in place, get it independently assured and then tell everyone about it (starting with your own supply chain!).

The Food Supply Chain

2010-02-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

Cor Groenveld, LRQA's leading global food safety expert and chairman of the Foundation for Food Safety Certification, gave a presentation at the Global Food Safety Conference in Washington, D.C. His Food Supply Chain Presentation was one of the highlights of an outstanding conference, with organisations from across the food supply chain coming together to discuss the most relevant food sector issues.

Click here to listen to Cor's presentation

Please send me an email at alex.briggs@lrqa.com and I will email you Cor's PowerPoint presentation.

Below is the transcript of Cor's presentation

Global Food Supply Chain, Cor Groenveld

I have been doing this work for a very long time, and what I want to do, I want to share some of our client experiences, as well as our experience in working with risk-based management systems. It’s not only food safety, I think when you look in food supply chain, we have more risks and we have more worries and I like to share the things we see, the great things companies have achieved in controlling those risks.
This is the things I’d like to talk about, most important I think, what are the issues we have in a food supply chain? And then the question, of course, can it happen to you? I’m afraid it can.
How can a management systems support a food company and how can audits and verification services support you? We are an audit company, we are member of Lloyd’s Register, this year we celebrate our 250th year of existence, that’s unbelievable, we started 250 years ago as a marine classification society, and we still do that, that’s an important part of our business. LRQA is the organisation doing certification and audits in all kinds of sectors, not only the food industry but also in other sectors. But food is very important for us, we have 450 food auditors and at the moment, we have more than 5,000 certificates in the food industry. This is a short list, I will just show it, these are the different services, we do in the food supply chain, and you can read it later in a handout.
The question is of course, is our food reliable enough? When you do a bit of googling, I think, you can find very interesting facts and figures, this was from the centre of disease controlling convention here in America and it says that 76 million Americans are estimated to be sick every year, that’s an interesting number, I think. And also when look at, the WHO, there are 2.2 million people who have health problems at the moment, 1.9 million are children, so I think it’s not a discussion, food is very important. This was an interview here in the United States by the by a market research company, and they found out that 57% of the people are very worried about food safety, and 39% a little bit. So, the facts are very clear. But, I think we have more concerns, when you think about sustainability and you think about food security, there are also big issues in the food supply chain. Talking about this, for instance the global livestock industry emits more greenhouse gas than all forms of transport. Well, that’s quite interesting I think, talking about global warming, well right now global warming is quite cold, but the economic impact of a problem with anthrax, I think when you look at these figures it shows how important food security is. Also, talk about children who do not have enough to eat, and then about labour conditions, and child labour, they say that 250 million people under the age of 12 are working for a salary, so there are quite a lot of concerns next to food safety. So, you could ask yourself, what do consumers expect? Of course, they want to have safe and good quality, that’s one of the most important things, but they also expect sustainability, social responsibility, food security, protection against bio terrorism, healthy food, fair trade and on and on, so there are more expectations than only safe food.
Today, JP Suarez (Chairman of the Global Food Safety Initiative) asked, “Should we think about extending the scope of GFSI?” And that’s an interesting discussion, of course food safety is non-competitive, and it’s the most important thing of GFSI, but when you look at food companies they will absolutely address these issues. Of course, we have to make sure that we have sustainable food supply chains.
And where are you? Are you here? Lying, very comfortable, in control, compliant, sustainable, or is it more like this? The world is changing, interacting, and we are depending on each other in the food supply chain, I think it’s more like this, but you can make your own choice. So, what we see in practice, how to deal with those different risk areas, we see three important things. One is when you want to control risks, you have to go through the whole supply chain, most of the food scares, they start in the beginning of the supply chain, you all know that as experts. So we have to make sure that we have a system throughout the supply chain. It should involve animal feed, it has to include packaging materials, so we have to make sure that there are systems in place that go through the whole supply chain. I think the working group of GFSI, working on supply chains is looking at that, and they are now looking if we can have other areas of the food supply chain included in the benchmarking process, and that’s very interesting, and I think it’s very good. The system has to be risk based, it’s absolutely important that we have systems based on risks, on risk assessment and not only for food, you can do risk assessment also for other risk area, and we have to cover all the concerns. Throughout the supply chain, you have the supply chain, I even think the word is wrong, I think it’s not a nice chain, it’s a network, it’s a very complex network, and I think one of the most complex networks in the entire industry. It starts with pesticides, fertilisers, animals feeds, and then we have all kinds of activities and if you look for instance to the pizza, I think the pizza can have more than 100 ingredients, and probably the producer of the pizza has more than one supplier for a number of these ingredients, and that shows how complex it is.
Risk based systems, management systems can help, but you have to know where your risks are, and that’s why we invented HACCP, I think that’s a very good example of harmonisation, when you look at Codex when they developed HACCP, we know it all over the world. With those risks based approach, it’s not only important for food safety you can have the same approach for other risk areas. You can do also, a risk analysis on your quality issues, or your environmental issues, or health and safety, and whatever. We see these kinds of management systems and they help suppliers to control all their risks. And then, of course, covering all the concerns, and what we see is that companies make a list of the most important concerns. And here you have a number of them, it can be the reliability of delivery, it can be quality, it can be environment, and every company can make its own risk analysis of their supply chain concerns. So, what tools can you use? We had to build a risk based management system for your concerns. First of all, and I was happy to see the numbers in China, where also ISO 22000 is used, I think ISO22000, is an example of a standard for food safety management systems that can be used in the whole supply chain. It is a generic standard, it’s not for one part of the supply chain, it is not sector specific, and it’s truly independent and international. So, an example of an international standard that can be used and is risk based is ISO22000, and you can build on it also for other risk areas and have the same risk approach. And you probably know, that there’s now FSSC 22000, here in America they call it F22K because FSSC22000, I had to practice also for a long time, but it’s not easy to say, so, we can also say F22K that is now using ISO22000, to be approved under GFSI. Also, the risk management approach is very important and there are tools for that too, and you can also have audits and verification, you can do them yourself of course, your supplier audits, or you can use external companies like LRQA.
Some facts about the standard, it’s already there for three or four years, and we see now that ISO is also developing the sector specific standards, that can be used together with ISO22000, So, we have now 22002, and it’s called 22002/1, and that’s for food manufacturing. So, that can be used in addition to 22000. Another interesting document, and I would advise you to read it, it’s not a document to be certified against, you cannot be certified against this document, but it’s the ISO 31000. It’s all about risk management, and not only risk management for food safety, this is the standard that can help you to build your risk based management system and it can be used for all the concerns that I showed in previous slides, so an interesting tool I think. And then, last but not least, assessments and verification. now of course it’s very important to do assessments and verification, to have a good Standard Assurance program, those who have a good system of auditing your own companies, because that helps you to find the continuous improvement possibilities, and also of course compliance with your requirements.
Our findings in the food supply chain, most of the important things that we find is the transparency, a lot of companies do not know where the raw materials come from, a lot of companies have problems to have transparency in their supply chain, and you need to have transparency to control the risk, that is important, also there’s more risk areas than food safety. Working together, we can improve a lot in working together with our suppliers, make sure we have a win-win situation with our suppliers that will be absolutely in favour of it. Food is global, we have ingredients from all over the world, I can eat strawberries in winter in Holland. So we have from food from all over the world, ingredients from all over the world, and that makes it complex, very complex. The technique you use for hazard analysis, we see a lot of different techniques, very good ones, but also sometimes, techniques that perhaps can be improved. The depth of hazard analysis, did you look at all the potential hazards?And, organisation of course and I think GFSI is an example where we tried to achieve that. The control has to be in the right place, where do you need to control pesticides? Do you want to take a lot of samples? When you have your raw materials coming in? Do you want to work together with your suppliers? What is the best place to control the hazards in the supply chain? It can even save you money if you find the right place. And then, of course the control of suppliers, and control of changes, a lot of things where there is a change, there can be a hazard, when things change, you have a hazard. So, when you have a good supply chain management system, you will achieve trust within the chain, you will make sure that you focus on risk areas, that you have a good technique for your hazard analysis, the control of the hazard in the right place, transparency in the supply chain. You can have an international recognised approval when you have a good system, and of course good improvement program, continuous improvement is absolutely important. And that for itself, through reduction of costs, and this is for the CEO’s. The CEO’s don’t want to see my presentation, they just want to see the last three statements; reduction of cost, increase in confidence, (they want to sleep well at night, they do not want to be worried,) and protection of their brand and image. Thank you very much.

Final thoughts from Washington D.C. and the Global Food Safety Conference

2010-02-05T05:42:00.000-08:00

The GFSI conference is my first food conference and one of the most interesting and valuable conferences I have attended. The sessions have been amazing and I have certainly learned a lot.

Over the past few days, I remembered a comment by Peter Drucker, “if you want to understand a problem, you increase the size of the problem to understand the complexities”, and that is what we have here in the food industry, lessons in business assurance and risk management that can benefit all industries. While managing risk and attempting to keep people safe and increase food safety, there is no margin for error.

For example, usually if you work on the quality and environmental side, there is some room for error, for example, even when pollution is released into a river, it’s not expected (good or bad) to kill immediately kill someone. Or, if there’s a rusty bolt, somebody isn’t going to have an allergic reaction and go into a coma.

But with food safety if one single person gets sick and goes to the hospital or one person dies from unsafe food, that’s just completely unacceptable. I think on the quality and environmental side many of our clients experience the same issues that our clients do on the food side, but not to the excessive degree. But there are lessons to be learned here…

At a high level, this conference is really leading the way in thought leadership and how our clients look at how their management systems can help them address risk in a progressive way I have just never seen in any other market segments.

One of my observations from the show, if I wanted to align LRQA’s Business Assurance approach to what many clients are learning and discussing here, is how a process type approach to food safety compares to a checklist approach.

Let’s take two examples and look at some of the key challenges our clients are facing at the show: 1. calibration of auditors and 2. the consistency of how these audits take place globally. If I just use these two examples, we see how difficult it can be to manage risk and make your organization bullet proof at a hundred percent. And although we know that vision may never be achieved, that’s what clients here are striving towards.

How do you achieve both calibration of auditors with global consistency? Simple answer is you can’t do it with a check list approach, it requires a process type approach such as FSSC 22000. Achieving these two objectives not only increases the benefits of food safety, but also business objectives. Understanding this is how you can achieve the economy scale of cost reductions that is going to make a company reduce costs.

In summary, it becomes apparent, very quickly, that a simple checklist based approach is not going to achieve these two objectives. This integrated food safety and business approach will allow clients to use their management systems to effectively manage food safety risks and grow the business.

FSSC 22000 The standard of choice

2010-02-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

This morning at the Global Food Safety Conference, we talked to Vel Pillay, LRQA Americas food safety expert. Vel talked about the road that LRQA has taken to FSSC 22000 and what lies ahead. Our interview took place on day two of the Washington, D.C. event. Below is the transcript of our interview (Listen to or download the audio podcast here)

Approximately three years ago, the North American food sector recognised the need for greater harmonisation, and adopted the five standards/schemes/programmes benchmarked by GFSI.
In 2009, LRQA’S food sector in North America, decided that we cannot be everything to everyone, and that we need to focus. The decision was taken to go to market with FSSC 22000, as our standard of choice. The team spent a lot of time creating credibility and visibility to the industry, through various means of communication and education. Our efforts eventually paid off, many of the multi-nationals recognised our leadership role, and turned towards us as a service provider. Three of the largest multi-nationals in the food sector in North America accepted FSSC 22000 as the standard of choice and chose us as their service provider.
In 2010, there definitely will be several challenges to face, the most imminent one, from my perspective, will be to build the infrastructure globally, to support the current and future market demands. With the emphasis on food safety, there is a shortage of qualified assessors around the world and this is going to be a tremendous challenge for the whole industry, to build that resource needed to provide a consistent and calibrated team. For LRQA, this means having consistent, calibrated resources in Asia, Europe, and North America, so that we can perform an outstanding service for all our clients.
There are three main components to the assessment process, the good standard, the good protocols, and infrastructure necessary. I believe at LRQA we have achieved the first two, and the challenge will be to ensure that we have consistent processes, and a good infrastructure. Another important component is the relationship with the client, I believe that we need to work very closely in partnership with the client, in order to build the trust necessary.

Andrew Smith Interview - day one at the Global Food Safety Conference

2010-02-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

This morning at the Global Food Safety Conference, we talked to Andrew Smith, LRQA's Senior Vice-President, Americas. Andrew talked about some of his early discussions with organisations in the food sector on day one of the Washington, D.C. event. (Listen to or download the audio podcast here)

Well, the emerging themes I think we are seeing from the traffic so far this morning are very much on harmonisation and consistency, so organisations are looking to harmonise the standards they’re applying within their own businesses and their suppliers. They are looking to ensure that an audit completed in China is the same as an audit completed in Columbia, which is the same as an audit completed in Peru, they’re looking for consistency of audit.

Where LRQA can help with those issues, obviously, we have a team of nearly five hundred food assessors worldwide, who go through the same program, and are held to the same standard. We have teams of experts who travel the world to ensure our auditors are trained to the same standard. Therefore, an audit completed in China would be conducted to the same level of attention as an audit in UK, or the Netherlands, or the USA.
In terms of key themes in client’s minds, there’s no doubt from their perspective that they are looking for certainty and assurance. There is a great deal of uncertainty and worry, within the food community that I am seeing here, associated with very complex supply chains and lots of different suppliers from small farmers all the way up to very large suppliers. It is about making sure they have the same assurance with the small players, that they do with the larger players.
The programs we’re developing to combine second party company schemes, with third party assurance, I believe is the answer to many of the concerns that we’ve just talked about. Again with the consistency of approach, the consistency of training, the level of rigour that is required by an LRQA assessor, combined with the program development skills that we’ve already developed, with many of our large clients, will solve these kinds of problems.
Another key theme I am seeing emerging from conversations I have had this morning relate to an understanding amongst the food community that inspections have had their day, and that process audits really are the answer of the future, for the level of assurance which is required. Again, our Business Assurance approach, which builds upon going beyond compliance to actually help businesses improve their performance certainly will assist in this regard.

Martin Brown Interview - day one at the Global Food Safety Conference

2010-02-03T13:18:00.000-08:00

This morning at the Global Food Safety Conference, we talked to Martin Brown, LRQA's Vice-President, Americas. Here are some of Martin's first impressions on day one from Washington, D.C. (Listen to or download the audio podcast here)

The Global Food Safety Conference, is an interesting event, it not only brings the world of food producers, the retailers, and the service industry together, but it also starts to define the values that that sector needs in the business. What fascinates me with the food sector, is there are some irreducible minimums, the nature of safe, quality food, is more and more universally understood. It’s a situation that many companies are realising tightly ties their brand, their reputation and even their survival, to getting this right. The cost of getting it wrong can be so damaging.
What we’re seeing at this conference is more and more of a unified view on the true value that this needs to represent to these organisations. Supply chains reach around the world, we see that through the nature of the companies that are at this conference, we also see it in the locations that many people here have come from. There are representatives here from many countries, India, China, Brazil and the US. Whereas in many other parts of our business we may describe those countries, and the markets they represent as being developing or emerging, in the food industry I think it’s a level playing field. The US buys most of its food, by volume and revenue from China and Brazil, so there is no part of this globe where supply chain safety in the food industry is not of paramount importance.
So, for an organisation like LRQA, this represents an amazing potential, because we see large global clients who have a large global footprint, either through their own organisation or their supply chains, bringing product and process in to them, for which their brand name is then dependent. LRQA also has a global footprint, we have an organisation that around the world is providing something more than just compliance, more than just a cursory look at that organisation, through our Business Assurance approach. We’re providing an insight into their management system and that can provide true value to them. And it’s very interesting that the companies we’ve spoken with here, and those we are already in a business relationships with, are looking for something specific. The large companies, who are either doing something about or soon to be doing something about food safety and quality in their business, are not looking for the cheapest price, they’re looking for value, they’re looking for the best service, to keep their name safe.

Cor Groenveld Interview - day one of the Global Food Safety Conference

2010-02-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

This morning at the Global Food Safety Conference, we talked to Cor Groenveld, LRQA's Global Food Safety Expert. Here is what Cor had to say about the conference and about the organisations gathered here in Washington, D.C. (Listen to or download the audio podcast here)

I’m in Washington DC, the capitol of the United States, and I’m attending the Global Food Safety Conference of the GFSI, the Global Food Safety Initiative. This is the largest food safety conference in the world, and this is the tenth year they have organised it, and this is the first time it’s in the US, outside of Europe, so that’s great. What we see here is a high commitment to food safety, we have seven hundred delegates in the conference, and it will last until this Friday.

For LRQA, I have been participating in the global food safety community for the last ten years, I was there from the beginning, and I am also a member of the technical committee of GFSI. The technical committee always has meetings before the conference, we have at the moment sixty people attending the technical committee, and they have a number of working groups. It’s a great opportunity where manufacturers, retailers, the science certification bodies, accreditation bodies, representatives of all the stakeholders, they come together and they work together on improvement of food safety, in the supply chain, and that’s absolutely important. Still food safety is one of the most important worries in the food supply chain, but what is very interesting is we see also that other concerns are addressed, they talk about sustainability, they talk about corporate responsibility, all these kind of issues become more and more important.
And also GFSI, the scope of GFSI until now is food safety, but JP Suarez, he is the chairman of the board of directors of GFSI, he did an opening speech this morning for the stakeholder groups, and he said we have to consider, it’s not decided yet, but he said lets consider if we have to broaden the scope of our community. Perhaps we should also address other risk areas in the supply chain within GFSI, so that will be interesting in the conference that starts this afternoon, to see what people think about it. And we as a certification body, we are already working on that, and when you look at LRQA, we have a large number of global food clients, and of course with them we address food safety as one of the most important issues. But we also talk with them about integrated audits, integrated assessments, looking at risk areas that are important for their brand, for their image, and make sure they have a robust management system, to address these risk areas.
What is unique about this food conference, is if you look at the list of participants, we have all the major food companies here, we have Kraft, we have Danone, we have McDonalds, we have Cargill, Coca-Cola, and I can go on with the list, but not only the major food companies, also the major retailers, Wal-Mart, Carrefour, all those major retailers are here too. And they will be discussing what do we need to do in our supply chain, to make it secure, that is the biggest question they have, and again it’s not only about food safety, it’s about other risk areas too.
LRQA is 100% committed to the food supply chain. At the moment, we are a member of a lot of committees, we supported the development of ISO 22000, we are a member of the technical committee of the GFSI. And at the moment, I am also very proud to be the chair of the foundation for food safety certification, that’s the organisation that developed, FSSC 22000, and that combines, ISO22000 together with the PAS 220, and is the platform to have a robust, food safety management system.
When we talk with our clients, they want to have secure management system, for their food supply chain, and that is also what we offer, we offer a solution that is looking absolutely at food safety, but also at other risk areas. We can help our clients to develop that system, and also we can do the audits against the system, and we call that our Business Assurance approach. So, it’s not only about food safety it is making sure that the brand’s image and reputation of food companies will be at a high level, and that the food scares that we had in the past, but also problems with labour, problems with animal welfare, that these issues are covered by their management systems.

J.P. Suarez on the role of the GFSI

2010-02-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

J.P. Suarez, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Walmart Stores International and chairman of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), talked to the 700 person Global Food Safety Conference audience about what the GFSI does and does not do.

On what the GFSI does, he said,

I think that cost efficiency is one of the key aspects of GFSI, and the rationales behind GFSI, and quite candidly, I’m not sure we are there yet and we need to make sure that cost efficiency is one of our objectives, continues be realised, without compromising the quality of food safety inspections and audits that we do in our factories and in our plants and in our farms.

On what the GFSI does NOT do, JP added,

GFSI does not make policy for retailers or manufacturers, those companies do. We don’t make policy for the standard owners, we do not undertake at GFSI any independent accreditation or certification activities.

Global Food Safety Conference - Day One

2010-02-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

We are at the Global Food Safety Conference in Washington D.C for the rest of this week. LRQA is one of the premium sponsors of the event, with our leading global technical expert, Cor Groenveld, giving two presentations during the conference.
This morning J P Suarez, the Chairman of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) started the conference off.

We will back later today with some quotes from his opening speech, as well as interviews with Cor Groenveld, Andrew Smith and Martin Brown.

INSPECTION TO PROCESS MANAGEMENT – THE EVOLUTION OF FOOD SAFETY MANAGEMENT

2010-02-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

As we have all seen over the course of the past few years, the impact of food safety scares go well beyond the immediate costs of the incident itself. The direct costs of such incidents can be relatively modest, but the impact on brand reputational risk can potentially put organizations out of business. Global food organizations recognize this concern and are consequently bringing a clear focus to this concern at Board level.

Historically, food safety has been ensured through inspection. This approach has served the industry well to a degree for many years, however the fundamental problem with that approach is that it’s limited to what is seen on the day, and thus clearly has inherent limitations. Indeed, many of the high profile food safety scares of the past few years had inspection regimes in place and they were being followed. However, because either the underlying weaknesses did not by chance result in physically observable problems on the day of the audit, or because these symptoms were not seen by the inspectors, remedial action was not taken and it was only a matter of time before a serious food safety event ensued.

A process audit approach is fundamentally different from an inspection based regime, whereby it actually determines the adequacy of the management processes to produce quality, safe product, through a detailed investigation of policies, procedures, competencies, resources applied, internal audit and verification processes and corrective and preventative action programs. It investigates the whole management process and supporting organizational structure to identify inherent weaknesses in the system, which can then be used to predict where problems might occur. Clearly, the resources to be applied to a process audit approach are significantly higher than those applied in traditional inspection regimes, costing several thousand dollars more per audit, but these costs are outweighed by the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars avoided from a major food safety scare.

A few years ago, the GFSI recognised the inherent inadequacies of the inspection approach and basically put in place four approved schemes that started to address the process safety approach, and recently a fifth has been added, FSSC 22000. The 2010 CIES conference will consider the latest state of play in the adoption of these schemes by the industry and key challenges moving forwards. LRQA has put its weight behind FSSC 22000 because it’s fundamentally based on a Plan, Do, Check, Act management process cycle, together with a detailed consideration as to the adequacy of GMPs via an assessment of the facility against the requirements of PAS220.

Looking into the future, forward-thinking food organizations have already started to think more broadly about risks to brand reputation beyond just food safety, to include such aspects as the environment, ethical sourcing and other wide-ranging social responsibility issues. It is likely that future process audit approaches to be applied within the food sector will incorporate these issues to provide a holistic tool for organizations to assess their overall brand reputational risk. It must also be recognized that in these days of global sourcing, such tools cannot be restricted to an assessment of processes at manufacturing facilities, but must be applied across increasing complex networks of global supply chains. The reputation of a large multi-national brand is equally at risk from a small farmer in Asia as it is from a defective process in one of its own facilities in its home country. An effective process audit must have the capacity to address all of these concerns.

In closing, a robust assurance process is an absolute necessity not an option for global brands. The question such an organization must ask is are they going to use such processes to systematically identify risks and put in place necessary control measures, or be blind to such concerns and hope for the best. Your stakeholders are listening……

Food Month Blog and Business Assurance

2010-02-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the LRQA Food Month blog. I am the Managing Director for LRQA, a member of the Lloyd’s Register Group. We have dedicated this month to the food sector as we believe that is a sector where organisations and their application of management systems can be of most benefit to business, consumers and society as a whole.
The mainstream media is filled with news of food safety scares just think milk, beef, spinach and last week even pepper, to name a few.

The announcement of a new food czar in the USA has highlighted the importance of the issue for governments. Organisations have also stepped up their commitment to food safety, with food manufacturers and retailers increasingly working together to seek robust solutions across the entire food supply chain.
The Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the European Union (CIAA) is an example of this, with retailers such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour working together with manufacturers such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Danone to develop the FSSC 22000 certification scheme. FSSC 22000 builds on the foundations of ISO 22000, the first independent global food safety standard.
ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 are at the core of LRQA’s Business Assurance approach to the food sector. Cor Groenveld, our global food safety expert, is currently the chairman for the Foundation for Food Safety Certification, the owners of FSSC 22000 and Cor was on the technical committee that developed ISO 22000. He will be in Washington D.C. this week at the Global Food Safety Conference . He is delivering a presentation on the importance of an integrated approach to Food Supply Chains, as well as presenting on behalf of the FSSC 22000.
The recent food safety scares have highlighted the potential damage to brand reputation that just one real or perceived scare in the food supply chain can do. Loss in market share, negative impact on supplier/retailer relationships and lawsuits are just some of the possible impacts on the brand.
In our discussions with global food manufacturers, we are increasingly seeing the conversation move away from conformance and meeting requirements. Our clients want to talk about reducing risk, reducing down time in the supply chain and they want to know how their management systems can protect their brand reputation. They also want to talk about their environmental performance, their health and safety systems, their IT systems and their quality management systems. In other words, they are proactively addressing the issues that their stakeholders are most concerned with.
It’s not business as usual for organisations in the food supply chain, it’s about Business Assurance.

Three days and counting....

2010-01-29T13:05:00.001-08:00

Monday, February 1st is the beginning of our Food Month blog. We already have a series of interviews, podcasts and blog post lined up for next week. We will be in Washington D.C. for the Global Food Safety Conference.

Our leading food safety experts, Cor Groenveld from Holland and Vel Pillay for the Americas will be reporting live from the event....

See you there and/or then.

February 2010 is Food Month for LRQA

2010-01-19T03:40:00.000-08:00

Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), the world's leading Business Assurance provider, has announced that February 2010 will be Food Month.

Throughout the month, a series of blogs, podcasts and videos will be posted on topics that are directly relevant to the global food sector.

Cor Groenveld, one of the world's leading food safety experts, will be leading the blog, with other contributors coming from all regions of the globe, as well as several blogposts looking at case studies in the food sector.

Information on the live LRQA Food Sector Webinar, with updates on the new global FSSC 22000 food safety management system standard, will also be available on this blog. The webinar will be delivered on February 16th, with two versions, one taking place early AM UK time for Asia and Europe, and the other taking place early AM US CET for audiences throughout the Americas.

Featured here will also be live blogging from the Global Food Safety Conference, February 3-5, Washington D.C.

So bookmark this page and check back every weekday throughout February for links, blogs, video and audio podcasts.

For further information on LRQA's Food Sector services, email enquiries@lrqa.com