What Operators Need to do to Ensure the Safety of their Supply Chain
Following the recent instance of companies breaching hygiene rules, the Food Standards Scotland and the Food Standards Agency announced the launch of a comprehensive review, the details of which we reported on here.
The review impacts hygiene controls at meat processing plants including unannounced inspections and auditing regimes, but, what action can QSR’s take to instil customer confidence that their food supply chain is safe?
According to SAI Global’s Senior Food Safety Consultant, Bob Strong, there are four areas QSR’s could address:
1) Suppliers conduct a third party GFSI conducted annually. These audits would be available to their customers upon request and show the full report; corrective actions for all; nonconformities; and the root cause analysis for each nonconformity.
2) Each food production plant conducts environmental swabbing to show that facilities are being cleaned adequately and those supplying ready-to-eat foods should include monitoring for Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, and E.coli.
3) Available to restaurants upon request, suppliers should supply their routine regulatory inspection and findings annually.
4) QSRs could develop a food hygiene checklist that they send to their suppliers every year with several food hygiene related questions. This should then be used as the basis for selecting suppliers.
Food safety scares, even if as a result of supplier failings, ultimately tarnish the reputations of the brands who do business with them, which is why it is so important for them to implement systems and procedures to ensure they don’t get caught out.
For more information on mitigating food risk visit www.saiglobal.com/restaurant
