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More melamine tainted chinese dairy products identified Published Date : 2010-07-13 12:00:36

Food productiondaily.com have today reported that more stock of melamine tainted dairy products have been identified in China.

Apparently traders purchased the contaminated products from the 2008 incident, which should have been disposed of, with the intention of processing the stock and selling it on.

Here at QADEX we have a major bee in our bonnet about the damage that unscrupulous or indifferent traders cause to the food supply chain and the resultant increased burden that falls on quality traders and food processors.

There must be a solution out there to identify, and then name the traders in the supply chain who do not meet minimum criteria to be participants within the food supply chain. These small minority are having an undue adverse impact on the vast majority of responsible food business operators.

Kellogg recall due to tainted packaging Published Date : 2010-06-28 13:04:32

It has been reported today that Kellogg have recalled 28 million boxes of breakfast cereal in the United States over fears an unknown chemical that has tainted its packaging could cause diarrhoea and vomiting.

At QADEX we consistently get pushback from some packaging suppliers who resist providing extensive information on supplier self audit questionnaires and on raw material specifications. Whilst there are some very good packaging suppliers there are many who are not really conversant with the potential risks of packaging and taint. Hopefully this incident will make a few more packaging suppliers stop and think that maybe they need to look at food safety in a more detail.

The moral here is that all packaging suppliers should be included in any supplier compliance management initiatives, although context is king, we advise to have a more detailed level of surveilance for contact packaging suppliers than for non contact packaging suppliers.

How to improve your supply chain when sourcing globally Published Date : 2010-06-10 08:50:03

Developing third world supply systems to international standards can reduce the food safety risks within your supply chain and contribute to improvements in the communities and countries that your ingredients are sourced from. This virtuous circle can link food safety to corporate social responsibility!

We define third world suppliers broadly in line with the oxford english dictionary definition as being suppliers from countries such as africa, asia and latin america collectively, especially when viewed as underdeveloped. One general exception being that we sometimes see suppliers from third world countries who are better than suppliers here in the UK.

We define international standards very loosely in this paper as being “a standard that is deemed acceptable for the food business operator who is using the ingredient based on a thorough risk assessment of the ingredient and its intended usage” This definition may be challenged by many purists who would argue in favour of one of the many various food safety schemes. Our reason for adopting this definition is pragmatic, if an ingredient is low risk then many of the current accredited food safety systems could be seen as too onerous for suppliers in the third world. A series of small achievable steps from where a supplier is today towards a fully accredited food safety certification may be more pragmatic than requiring suppliers to make a big leap.

So how do you move suppliers from where they are today into a process of continual improvement?

We recommend a number of steps.

Make your supplier audit questionnaires and product specifications requirements context specific.

Know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain behind the raw material.

Understand fully what activities occur at suppliers sites. Collect supplier self audit questionnaires. Review and risk assess the responses. Seek clarification where required. Audit the supplier. Provide training and guidance to assist suppliers address non-conformances.

While outlining best practice we recognise there are some barriers to best practice, these barriers and how to overcome them will be discussed.

Finally we discuss how you can help suppliers to develop their systems to meet international standards.

Steps recommended to develop your third world supply systems to international standards

Make supplier audit questionnaires and product specifications requirements context specific

If sourcing different types of ingredients such as meat, dairy and dry ingredients, it is recommended to deploy supplier audit questionnaires and specifications that are specific to the type of ingredients being supplied. This allows more detailed information to be gathered relating to the ingredient type and engenders greater co-operation when suppliers recognise you are asking for information that is relevant.

Know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain behind the raw material

If you do not know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain for that raw material from farm to fork you may be unable to “risk assess” that supply chain.

For example: Whilst travelling between factories in a third world country (in my air conditioned car, due to 45 degree C temperatures outside) I repeatedly noticed open topped milk tankers bouncing along the rough roads with milk spilling out the top and no apparent refrigeration, these tankers frequently stopped at the roadside and collected milk from open churns. The local farmers and tanker drivers had improvised a creative, but not food safe, method of ensuring the milk passed dairy intake checks. This practice highlighted a food safety risk that would have been overlooked through the usual supplier auditing process.

Understand fully what activities happen at supplier sites.

A detailed understanding of all processing activities which happen at the supplying site, throughout the year may highlight risks that would not ordinarily be considered. This is particularly the case where a site is processing seasonal lines, do a detailed evaluation of what the site is doing out of season, it can be quite revealing.

Collect supplier self audit questionnaires.

Having implemented the above steps you are now in a position to get supplier self audit questionnaires completed by your suppliers with an awareness of the type of issues that you need to be aware of. We recommend using Yes/No questions to ascertain key compliance information followed by qualifying questions to support the Yes/No questions. This ensures clear unambiguous responses to important questions with additional information to support the review process.

Review and risk assess the responses.

Ensure that all questionnaires are reviewed in detail and an objective scoring system used to define the outcome of the review process. Scoring may be weighted to give greater importance to specific areas of concern or importance.

Seek clarification where required.

If answers are ambiguous or do not give the information required, it is reasonable to assume that the supplier may have worded their response to cover something up. Seek clarification. If in doubt or even if you have a gut feeling then request further information.

Audit the supplier

As the market leader in of solutions for supplier compliance management we recognise that supplier self audits are not ideal.

Our recommendation is to find a way of gaining access to a recent audit report from the site if you cannot audit the site yourself, or contract the work to a competent auditor. Another option is to share the audit costs with another business also sourcing from the supplier.

An audit shared is an audit cost reduced!

Provide training and guidance to assist suppliers address non-conformances.

This is where a real difference can be made to developing third world supply systems to international standards and continually improving your supply chain.

When sourcing from 3rd world suppliers and following the steps outlined in this paper there are likely to be a substantial number of non-conformances. The easy option would be not to approve the supplier but this may have commercial implications. An alternative route is to provide a range of training and guidance to help your suppliers improve their systems.

This can be as simple as providing detailed guidance to suppliers showing them practical ways to improve, arranging in country training for groups of suppliers, delivering eLearning solutions using the internet, or using webinar based training that enables interactive training remotely for large numbers of suppliers.

With extensive training expertise we would be delighted to guide you through selecting which methodology is best for your business and supply chain.

Barriers to the above best practice and how to overcome them

Agents and traders

Agents and traders may be spot buying ingredients or have many suppliers of ingredients which they may not have audited. Agents and traders have a role to play in many supply chains. We encounter many responsible agents and traders who have good supplier approval and management systems in place, we also encounter those that do not recognise that they have a responsibility to approve their suppliers and provide appropriate technical support to their customers. These agents and traders are a major obstacle to assured supply chains and need to be pressurised to either improve or leave the food supply chain.

Supplier refusal

All too often suppliers try to avoid providing information and give various excuses including;

1. We’re too busy2. You do not buy enough from us to justify the time3. We’re too big4. Lack of resources

It can be difficult to navigate these issues whilst avoiding confrontation with un-cooperative suppliers.

Supplier refusal can be reduced by using web-based databases, which aggregate requirements ensuring suppliers only have to provide the information once into a database, and with appropriate approvals the information can be accessed by multiple customers.

Lack of resource at suppliers

Suppliers need to ensure that they have sufficient resources relative to industry requirements and web-based databases can reduce the time taken to provide this information. It is recommended that purchasing departments consider a potential new suppliers technical resources and capability at the start of commercial discussions. It is often too late once a suppliers ingredients have been incorporated into products.

Have something to hide

In this instance the supplier knows that they are not compliant and want to avoid you becoming aware of this. This will manifest itself in one of two ways. Firstly suppliers will refuse using one of the excuses provided above or suppliers will avoid refusing but give different excuses each time you chase looking for the information.

You need to be persistent and implement a planned de-list program. In our experience a credible threat of being de-listed motivates suppliers to provide information. It is important to follow though with de-lists where it is clear that suppliers are not prepared to provide the information required.

ConclusionBy following the steps recommended to develop your third world supply systems to international standards and addressing the barriers to best practice you will deliver a supply chain which is less likely to present food safety risks to your business.

You will have de-listed some suppliers where the risk was deemed to be too high. As other food businesses implement the same strategy these risky suppliers will be forced to improve or leave the food supply chain.

By partnering with third world suppliers your business will have a strategic advantage, greater supply chain visibility and make a lasting improvement to the food safety systems in these countries. This will have many beneficial implications for the suppliers and the communities which they operate in.

By linking into your businesses corporate social responsibility systems, your food safety initiatives can contribute in a very positive way to the communities and countries that your ingredients are sourced from.

Safer ingredients and more prosperous communities in the third world are a win win for all participants.

QADEX User Forum Published Date : 2010-06-03 08:25:31

We are delighted to announce the launch of the QADEX User Forum and the customer relations team are busy organising the first events to take place in late June or early July.

These events will be organised in small groups and focus on the following areas

User updates to showcase many of the new features added during the recent QADEX 3.1 update

An overview of best practice and how to get more from your QADEX implementation Future developments and  user input into the QADEX development road map

The user forum is also an ideal opportunity to network and share ideas.

If we have not already spoken to you about the user forum please contact your relevant QADEX contact and request a place.

Themes to be covered during the forum will include how to improve supplier compliance management, supplier auditing and control of ingredient specifications using QADEX 3.1

How food safety can contribute to corporate social responsibility Published Date : 2010-06-03 08:05:31

Or a roadmap to how you can improve food safety for your business and contribute to more prosperous communities in third world countries.

Developing third world supply systems to international standards can reduce the food safety risks within your supply chain and contribute to improvements in the communities and countries that your ingredients are sourced from. This virtuous circle can link food safety to corporate social responsibility!

We define third world suppliers broadly in line with the oxford english dictionary definition as being suppliers from countries such as africa, asia and latin america collectively, especially when viewed as underdeveloped. One general exception being that we sometimes see suppliers from third world countries who are better than suppliers here in the UK.

We define international standards very loosely in this paper is being “a standard that is deemed acceptable for the food business operator who is using the ingredient based on a thorough risk assessment of the ingredient and its intended usage” This definition may be challenged by many purists who would argue in favour of one of the many various food safety schemes.. Our reason for adopting this definition is pragmatic, if an ingredient is low risk then many of the current accredited food safety systems could be seen as too onerous for suppliers in the third world. A series of small achievable steps from where a supplier is today towards a fully accredited food safety certification may be more pragmatic than requiring suppliers to make a big leap.

So how do you move suppliers from where they are today into a process of continual improvement?

We recommend a number of steps.

Make your supplier audit questionnaires and product specifications requirements context specific.

Know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain behind the raw material.

Understand fully what activities occur at suppliers sites. Collect supplier self audit questionnaires. Review and risk assess the responses. Seek clarification where required.

Audit the supplier. Provide training and guidance to assist suppliers address non-conformances.

While outlining best practice we recognise there are some barriers to best practice, these barriers to best practice and how to overcome them will be discussed.

Finally we discuss how you can help suppliers to develop their systems to meet international standards.

Steps recommended to develop your third world supply systems to international standardsMake supplier audit questionnaires and product specifications requirements context specific

If sourcing different types of ingredients such as meat, dairy, dry ingredients, it is recommended to deploy supplier audit questionnaires and specifications that are specific to the type of ingredients being supplied. This allows more detailed information to be gathered relating to the ingredient type and engenders greater co-operation when suppliers recognise you are asking for information that is relevant.

Know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain behind the raw material

If you do not know what is in the raw material and understand the supply chain for that raw material from farm to fork you may be unable to “risk assess” that supply chain.

For example: Whilst travelling between factories in a third world country (in my air conditioned car, due to 45 degree C temperatures outside) I repeatedly noticed open topped milk tankers bouncing along the rough roads with milk spilling out the top and no apparent refrigeration, these tankers were frequently stopping at the roadside and collecting milk from open churns. The local farmers and tanker drivers had improvised a creative, but not food safe, method of ensuring the milk passed dairy intake checks. This practice highlighted a food safety risk that would have been overlooked through the usual supplier auditing process.

Understand fully what activities happen at supplier sites.

A detailed understanding of all processing activities which happen at the supplying site, throughout the year may highlight risks that would not ordinarily be considered. This is

particularly the case where a site is processing seasonal lines, do a detailed evaluation of what the site is doing out of season, it can be quite revealing.

Collect supplier self audit questionnaires.

Having implemented the above steps you are now in a position to get supplier self audit questionnaires completed by your suppliers with an awareness of the type of issues that you need to be aware of. We recommend using Yes/No questions to ascertain key compliance information followed by qualifying questions to support the Yes/No questions. This ensures clear unambiguous responses to important questions with additional information to support the review process.

Review and risk assess the responses.

Ensure that all questionnaires are reviewed in detail and an objective scoring system used to define the outcome of the review process. Scoring may be weighted to give greater importance to specific areas of concern or importance.

Seek clarification where required.

If answers are ambiguous or do not give the information required, it is reasonable to assume that the supplier may have worded their response to cover something up. Seek clarification. If in doubt or you even have a gut feeling then follow your gut feeling and request further information.

Audit the supplier

As the market leading provider of solutions for supplier self audit we recognise that supplier self audit is not ideal.

Our recommendation is to find some way of gaining access to a recent audit report from the site if you cannot audit the site yourself, or contract the work to a competent auditor. Another option is to share the audit costs with another business also sourcing from the supplier.

An audit shared is an audit cost reduced!

Provide training and guidance to assist suppliers address non-conformances.

This is where a real difference can be made to developing third world supply systems to international standards and continually improving your supply chain.

When sourcing from 3rd world suppliers and following the steps outlined in this paper there are likely to be a substantial number of non-conformances. The easy option would be not to approve the supplier but this may have commercial implications. An alternative route is to provide a range of training and guidance to help your suppliers improve their systems.

This can be as simple as providing detailed guidance to suppliers showing them practical ways to improve, arranging in country training for groups of suppliers, delivering eLearning solutions using the internet, or using webinar based training that enables interactive training remotely for large numbers of suppliers.

With extensive training expertise we would be delighted to guide you through selecting which methodology is best for your business and supply chain.

Barriers to the above best practice and how to overcome themAgents and traders

Agents and traders may be spot buying ingredients or have many suppliers of ingredients which they may not have audited. Agents and traders have a role to play in many supply chains. We encounter many responsible agents and traders who have good supplier approval and management systems in place, we also encounter those that do not recognise that they have a responsibility to approve their suppliers and provide appropriate technical support to their customers. These agents and traders are a major obstacle to assured supply chains and need to be pressurised to either improve or leave the food supply chain.

Supplier refusal

All too often suppliers try to avoid providing information and give various excuses including;

1. We’re too busy2. You do not buy enough from us to justify the time3. We’re too big and your not important enough a customer4. Lack of resource

It can be difficult to navigate these issues while avoiding confrontation with un-cooperative suppliers.

Supplier refusal can be reduced by using web-based databases which aggregate requirements ensuring suppliers only have to provide the information once onto a database and with appropriate approvals the information can be accessed by multiple customers.

Lack of resource at suppliers

Suppliers need to ensure that they have sufficient resources relative to industry requirements and web-based databases can reduce the time taken to provide information. It is recommended that purchasing departments consider a potential new suppliers technical resources and capability at the start of commercial discussions. It is often too late once a suppliers ingredients have been incorporated into products.

Have something to hide

In this instance the supplier knows that they are not compliant and want to avoid you becoming aware of this. This will manifest itslef in one of two ways. Firstly suppliers will refuse using one of the excuses provided above or suppliers will avoid refusing but give different excuses each time you chase looking for the information.

You need to be persistent and implement a planned de-list program. In our experience a credible threat of being de-listed motivates suppliers to provide information. It is important to follow though with de-lists where it is clear that suppliers are not prepared to provide the information required.

ConclusionBy following the steps recommended to develop your third world supply systems to international standards and addressing the barriers to best practice you will deliver a supply chain which is less likely to present food safety risks to your business.

You will have de-listed some suppliers where the risk was deemed to be too high. As other food businesses implement the same strategy these risky suppliers will be forced to improve or leave the food supply chain.

By partnering with third world suppliers your business will have a strategic advantage, greater supply chain visibility and make a lasting improvement to the food safety systems in these countries. This will have many beneficial implications for the suppliers and the communities which they operate in.

By linking into your businesses corporate social responsibility systems, your food safety initiatives can contribute in a very positive way to the communities and countries that your ingredients are sourced from.

Safer ingredients and more prosperous communities in the third world, a win win for all participants.

Controlling food safety in the food chain

Published Date : 2010-05-17 11:01:56

The United Kingdom Association for Food Protection is a non-profit making body offering a platform for disseminationg that latest information on current and emerging food safety issues. Their fifth annual meeting was a unique opportunity to hear internationally respected speakers provide up-to-date insights into current and future practices in food safety.

As food makers and food buyers achieve control and improve food safety criteria they find themselves at risk from products, ingredients and materials from around the world.

How can you be sure of the quality and safety of these supplies? How sure are you of the food safety systems being applied?

Speakers presented their knowledge on the consequences of things going wrong and on the challenges and solutions for food chain safety.

QADEX provided an informative and thought provoking presentation on the lessons than can be applied to securing safe food supplies which encompassed, supplier auditing, supplier compliance management (SCM) along with a discussion of the importance of linking raw material specifications to finished product specifications.

QADEX 3.1 released Published Date : 2010-05-07 08:36:58

As many people were having a long May bank holiday week-end the QADEX development team were busy bees working throughout the long week-end on the release of QADEX 3.1

The release of QADEX 3.1 brings a whole host of new features including:

Supplier relationship management Automatic risk assessment and scoring of suppliers based on audit results Enhanced document archiving Enhanced user interfaces

There have also been a number of exciting changes which are tailored to the requirements of large multi-site food groups which are too good to put out in the public domain. But can be seen by contacting us for a demo.

Using QADEX 3.1 supplier auditing and specification management has moved to a whole new level.

Not resting on their laurels the development team are now working on QADEX 3.2 and QADEX 4.1, but more about that later.

Embedded water in the food supply chain Published Date : 2010-04-19 11:11:54

Media interest in water in the food supply chain continues to grow with the BBC news today providing extensive coverage to this issue. More information is available on the BBC News website

Some people are forecasting that food safety and food security are starting to merge, this presents the perfect storm for those responsible for supply chain assurance in that there are already serious pressures and requirements on food safety professionals which they are struggling to meet. It seems that the pace of development of requirements on the food industry is getting faster with every year that passes. In fact it could be argued that the change in requirements is faster than industries ability to keep up. Can you imagine supplier auditing and raw material specifications having to take account of water conservation?

Some of the statistics reported make startling reading. The reported embedded water in the following products, per Kg, were:

Tea – 30 litres

Apples – 70 litres

Coffee – 140 litres

Beer – 150 litres

Bread – 440 litres

Chicken – 683 litres

Sugar – 1500 litres

Cheese – 2500 litres

Rice – 3400 litres

Beef – 3875 litres

But a pair of jeans had 10,850 litres so I guess jeans are off the menu!

Thinking about the amout of water that is in our food supply chain is probably something that we are going to have to think about some more, but it is one of these issues where something needs to be done but the logistical and political challenge required is hugh, not to mind the data gathering and assessment challenges.

This issue is going to increase in importance but some serious consideration, and support, needs to be given to allow industry to respond. Is it sufficient for government and regulators to stand back and leave this to industry, I would contend not, but them what would the likely outcome be if government and regulators became involved, a real catch 22!

And how do you compare information, ie compare apples to apples :

Meat Safety conference presentation may be erupting Published Date : 2010-04-16 15:19:38

QADEX were delighted to be invited to speak at the VIV Meat Safety conference in Utrecht on Tuesday 20th April.

We even had a very interesting presentation prepared on the subject of “Managing Supply Chain Assurance in Global Supply Chains” which may now have to be kept on ice, or worse still delivered over a live video link, and you thought live video links were only for absent oscar winners!

So we shall wait and see, who knows, the ash may have all blown away and air traffic returned to normal by Tuesday morning, and pigs might fly. Who knows some of the boffins at the VIV Europe exhibition may have used genetic engineering to develop a flying pig?

Our presentation covers the following subjects:

Best practice overview Barriers to best practice Good practice Where we are now in relation to supplier auditing Where we are now in relation to raw material specifications Challenges Some scary stories How to address the challenges. Dealing with agents, traders and importers, some of whom can best be described as

cowboys! The role that electronic systems can play How to choose a system

If anyone wishes to receive a copy of this presentation please email support@qadex.com or phone 0845 3024780 and request a copy.

Have a break. Have an orangutan's finger Published Date : 2010-04-01 15:56:06

The current Greenpeace viral marketing campaign targeting Nestle and KitKat in particular is a challenging piece of guerilla marketing which raises the profile of sustainable palm oil in a very cost effective fashion for Greenpeace

This type of guerilla warfare makes it very difficult for brand owners to know where the next attack is coming from.

What surprises me is that Nestle had already made a commitment to use only certified sustainable palm oil by 2015 when sufficient quantities were expected to be available. This seems like a reasonable stance to be taking as there is not enough sustainable palm oil available at the moment for everyone to change over.

So why pick on Nestle, or is it more due to a particular supplier which Nestle is currently which raises some questions about supplier auditing and its role within corporate social responsibility.

Keep supplier emergency contacts up to date Published Date : 2010-03-19 09:44:58

Increasingly food businesses are maintaining a listing of all suppliers and the suppliers emergency contact details. Some of the ways that sites are trying to collate this information is from supplier auditing records or by trawling through supplier self audit information.

This is a time consuming process hampered by poor quality information on self audits and missing self audits. By the time the exercise is completed the emergency contact information is often out of date.

Some of our clever users came up with a very simple suggestion based on their usage of QADEX, why not create a report that extracts all of the emergency contact information from the self audits gathered during the supplier auditing process and put this information onto a report template within the powerful QADEX reporting area.

Users asked and we have delivered, this will now be a standard feature of QADEX 3.1

All existing QADEX users will have instant access to this feature and it will be covered during QADEX 3.1 roll out training and briefings.

If you are not a QADEX user then keep rooting through the manual records or give us a call and we will give you a sneak preview of this useful feature.

Supplier Auditing, food safety and sustainability converge Published Date : 2010-03-08 09:52:25

Something which we have started to notice is that food safety and sustainability are starting to converge. This convergence in its simplest form entails overstretched technical teams who are responsible for supplier auditing and food safety being given the responsibility in their businesses to manage sustainability within their supply chains.

We also see this on raw material specifications which are being used to gather sustainability information.

A recent article published by the Wall Street Journal highlights this trend by discussing how Indian government subsidising urea for farmers has resulted in the over usage of urea and degradation of soil fertility.

What this article did not discuss was any potential food safety issues from excessive urea usage.

Read the article at http://bit.ly/c5TMKi and let us know what you think.

Ninja Peas and the technical manager Published Date : 2010-03-04 18:28:52

About Pinguin Foods UK

Operating from 3 BRC certified sites at Kings Lynn, Boston and Easton capable of producing over 120,000 tonnes of product per year including 27,000 tonnes of peas, Pinguin supplies the retail, foodservice and industrial markets in the UK as well as having a growing export business.

Avis Baden, quality and technical manager, is responsible for a wide range of suppliers from growers to ingredient and packaging suppliers.

“Trying to control the amount of information and getting information back was becoming a nightmare”

Huge amounts of time was spent chasing suppliers for updated certificates or outstanding information and the amount of incoming information was becoming more difficult to control

with reams of paper needing collation and filing. It was, in short, ‘a nightmare’, often leaving us unable to find the one elusive document that had been requested during an audit.

Life since choosing QADEX.

There is no question that the system has saved time in the technical department, we now just fill in the address details of any new suppliers and choose which of our questionnaires need completing. At the click of a mouse, the request is sent out to the supplier.

As the QADEX support team manages and monitors the information submitted Pinguin are confident that we have the same level of consistent information readily available for each of our suppliers and can approach audits with ease.

Suppliers too, have benefited from the experience, even the most technically challenged have been guided through the online process by the QADEX support team,

“suppliers say it is really quite easy”

All completed questionnaires are forwarded to the Pinguin Foods technical team after being reviewed by a QADEX food technologist for completeness.

“cost savings exceed 50%”

The accountants are happy too, we have reduced the cost of approved supplier management by over 50% while realising a wide range of improvements.

A win win situation.

Pinguin Foods logo

Spring is in the air and QADEX 3.1 is on its way Published Date : 2010-03-01 11:37:07

1st of March and the sun has arrived at long last, Winter seems to have been around for ever this year.

Like the first flowers of spring we are delighted to confirm that QADEX 3.1 is on its way.

Full of new features and upgrades to existing features many of which were suggested by some of our 7,000 plus registered users.

Over the coming weeks we will be posting further updates about the upgrade, but in the meantime if you have any questions please contact us directly.

Food safety challenges in China Published Date : 2010-02-11 21:29:55

I recently attended a conference where a presentation was given by Professor Jun Shi Chen from the Chinese center for disease control and prevention. The title of this presentation was food safety challenges in China – perceptions and strategies.

China is a major exporter into the global food supply chain which has been the source of a number of recent food scares. Risk assessing and gathering raw material specifications and supplier audit information from Chinese suppliers can be interesting.

During this presentation two key statistics jumped out at me which highlights the scale of the challenge;

1) There are 200,000,000, yes 200 million farmers in China, source contamination on these farms is a real challenge.

2) There are 500,000 small food manufacturers, but this is only estimated as there are no official statistics.

With a supply chain this vast, how can food safety be managed, I welcome any comments.

What are the GFSI Objectives? Published Date : 2010-02-05 16:35:30

Following my posting last week about attending the GFSI conference a reader emailed to ask what was the objective of the GFSI since they already had BRC as far as they were concerned.

My answer to this question is simple, to standardise food safety standards around the world to make it easier for those sourcing food globally to know what standard sites are operating to where ever the site has a food safety certification in place.

I have also taken the liberty of looking at the GFSI Objectives as stated1. Promote convergence between food safety standards through maintaining a benchmarking process for food safety management schemes.2. Improve cost efficiency throughout the food supply chain through the common acceptance of GFSI recognised standards by retailers around the world.3. Provide a unique international stakeholder platform for networking, knowledge exchange and sharing of best food safety practices and information.

My simple explanation was a little simplistic.

Global Food Safety Conference 2010 Published Date : 2010-01-31 16:34:44

QADEX are delighted to be attending the Global Food Safety Conference 2010 which takes place next week in Washington DC.

This conference is organised by The Consumer Goods Forum and is focused on how we can better manage food safety in a global context.

As a business we are strong advocates of the benefits to global food safety of having suppliers operating to a recognised food standard. To this end we have a functionality within the QADEX Supply Chain Assurance module to allow suppliers who hold a GFSI recognised food safety certification to fast track through the supplier self auditing process by only having to provide information which is covered outside the scope of these food safety standards. Over 90% of QADEX users utilise this functionality, thus rewarding suppliers who have invested in gaining certification against a recognised standard.

But what about the vast number of suppliers who do not have a certification, when they complain about the burdens of multiple audits we have a simple answer, gain certification to a recognised standard, until then stop complaining.

Sometimes we have users who are unsure which food safety schemes are recognised. GFSI currently recognises:– BRC Global Standard Version 5– Dutch HACCP (Option B)– FSSC 22000 (conditional recognition only)– IFS Version 5– SQF 2000 Level 2

– GlobalGAP (Fruit and Vegetable Scope Options 1 and 2 only)– SQF 1000 Level 2 (against version 4 of the GFSI Guidance Document)

Jimmy's Global Harvest and the food supply chain Published Date : 2010-01-25 13:55:58

One of the joys of working in the food industry is that we are surrounded by our work, even when we are at home trying to switch off with our families.

One program that I have started to watch recently is Jimmy’s Global Harvest featuring Jimmy Doherty on BBC. Sometimes it does not make for comfortable viewing, but what it does seem to do is give a balanced perspective by media standards.

As a foodie with an interest in the food supply chain, and in particular how we can respond to the challenges that face us as an industry, one recurring theme which is coming through in this program is that dwindling water supplies are going to become a major issue.

It would appear that in due course we are going to have to give consideration to water usage and conservation in our supply chain assurance activities.

If you want to find out more I recommend you go to BBC iPlayer and look at Jimmy’s Global Harvest.

Bad weather shows need for robust contingency planning Published Date : 2010-01-16 14:35:42

With the recent bad weather here in the UK many businesses have had disruption varying from staff being unable to get to work to distribution delays and everything in between.

Many businesses talk about having contingency plans in place to deal with different situations. Interestingly one area that some people overlook in their contingency planning is communicating with their supply chain.

Here at QADEX we help our customers manage over 7,000 suppliers.

When a new customer makes the wise decision to adopt QADEX, we manage all set-up of their account, including setting up all suppliers and the suppliers contact details. When a customer sends their supplier list and contact details to us for set-up we are sometimes surprised about how many of the contact details are incorrect. Examples include:– Suppliers listed who have been de-listed.– Contact names at suppliers incorrect.– Supplier email addresses and phone numbers incorrectIn some instances we have found up to 50% of the data to be inaccurate.

In the event of a food business needing to contact their suppliers for information such as product specifications, supplier self audits or any other information, this lack of accurate contact information makes data gathering a time consuming task.

In the event of a crisis where information is required urgently what are the chances……

As you are putting together your priorities for 2010 may we suggest that you add to this a data cleaning exercise on your supplier contact information, unfortunately you will also need to plan a frequent update as the contacts that you verify have a habit of quickly going out of date.

For those of you reading this who are lucky enough to be already using QADEX we have a new “Emergency Contacts Report” arriving in February which will extract all of the emergency contact information from your supplier self audits and present these on an instant report. Even better you can use the Communicate feature to contact all the suppliers instantly.

Managing allergens in the food chain conference Published Date : 2010-01-08 10:41:38

QADEX are delighted to be sponsoring this conference and we will have a little stand where you can come along and talk to us.

This conference is being hosted by Food Manufacture Magazine on the 4th of February in London and will feature a roster of leading speakers representing various organisations such as The Anaphylaxis Campaign, Food Standards Agency, BRC, Sainsburys, S&A Foods, Unilever, RSSL, Assured Quality Solutions and your trusted friends QADEX.

More information about this conference can be found at www.foodanddrinkevents.com/foodman

We look forward to seeing to you there