Supplier Food Safety Assurance Program - SFSAP
A good way to work hand in hand and share responsibilities clearly
-
Do you feel alone to face when the time comes to manage the multiple regulatory requirements and the rules attached to them?
-
Do you have questions on how certain raw materials are manufactured, categorized or even labeled ?
-
Do you have questions about the way certain services that are executed/offered?
Do not hesitate to call your suppliers. They represent an important resource full of useful information to document your Preventive Control Plans, your quality programs or your customer requirements programs.
They are your partners and they are also there to help you meet regulatory compliance requirements.
The game plan:
The purchases of raw materials and supplier services, food or not, are necessarily monitored given the potential direct or indirect use of these in the products you manufacturing operations.
The ABCs of manufacturing quality products starts with using quality raw materials and service and that:
-
Meet the specifications and technical requirements specific to your equipment and manufacturing methods
-
Meet health and safety requirements (including WHMIS-2015 or Canadian GHS )
-
Allow you to manufacture the desired products according to the recipes/procedures in place in your company (the famous "fit for purpose")
-
Comply with the requirements of your client's programs or quality standards for which you are certified
-
Make it possible to manufacture healthy products whose safety and wholesomeness meet regulatory compliance requirements and applicable standards
-
They themselves meet the regulatory compliance requirements of the sector in which you operate in terms of their acceptability
It is therefore important to build or develop and implement a rigorous supplier food safety assurance program. This program will of course apply to the raw materials supplied/purchased but also to the services rendered/executed by the suppliers and to the suppliers themselves as a company that's part of the supply chain.
Structure your SFSAP:
You will need to adjust your program to what you do while remaining flexible in order to cope with changes that may occur within your company but also among your suppliers as well as changes to regulatory compliance requirements, standards and customer programs.
A comprehensive program will allow you to properly monitor what goes inside your business and respond to any potential issues. Potential, and this is the key, because it is more than important to identify any non-com pliance or any problem with a raw material or service rendered/executed before the production of a food product begins.
The challenges of a SFSAP:
The main challenges in the development, implementation and management of a SFSAP are:
-
Compliance assessment and the criteria to be used
-
Updating clients' files
-
The number of suppliers
-
Obtain complete information from foreign suppliers
-
Monitoring, sampling and analysis
-
Site visits and audits
Remember that your raw material and service suppliers are there to support you. If they are suppliers for your business; it is that they benefit from it . It is therefore to their advantage to serve you well and to do everything in their power to make your business run smoothly since they also get something in return.
In order not to weigh it down; take inspiration from what is done elsewhere and consult your suppliers before putting forward any requirements that they will have difficulty to meet . They will certainly have suggestions that can make your life easier.
We are able to help you to develop, implement or improve your Food Safety Assurance Program targeting Suppliers so that you are able to meet regulatory and normative compliance requirements and those of your clients (including those stipulated in the GFSI standards). This will allow you to enjoy the fact that the regulation is not as prescriptive and now based on risk. This allows you to innovate in order to find/develop new ways of doing things best suited to your reality. It will also allow you to better control what happens in the exchanges with your suppliers, to learn more and to simplify things. In the end you'll become more efficient and you will save money.