Industry tackles key themes at food safety summit

Ferrero, General Mills, SHS Drinks Division, Starbucks and Auchan were some of the speakers at the E.N.G Global Food Safety Summit in Madrid.

Salvatore Ranchetti, group quality director at Ferrero said it was sometimes tough to understand and adapt products to different markets as local regulations and knowledge means local contacts are needed.

Different market approaches​

He said the firm does the major of its business in the EU and the ingredients and packaging materials that work well there don’t necessarily transfer to other countries, such as China.

The maker of Tic Tacs, Nutella, Ferrero Rocher and Kinder said a product needs to be adapted to meet different markets in terms of food safety requirements.

Ranchetti gave the example of gave the example of Raffaello which has its biggest market in Russia – if it was going to change that product it would need to be approved by Russian consumers to be successful.

He said an international company needs one common quality system, coherence along the value chain, products sold in different countries needing the same quality despite the different manufacturing conditions and local responsibility for areas such as raw materials and packaging materials.

Starbucks supplier approval​

Alain Dewael, senior manager, quality assurance and regulatory affairs EMEA at Starbucks Coffee, gave an insight into supplier approval.

He said an audit could reveal a green or blue supplier which are applied for supply, an amber supplier which has 28 days to do corrective actions after which, if successful, they can supply and a red supplier which will not be used to supply.

The approval audit is on top of GFSI certification which is a minimum requirement for food manufacturers supplying Starbucks as of January 2015 or else they will be removed from supplier list.

Dewael said the current status is 50% (67) in the green section, 3% (4) in amber, 8% (10) in red and unqualified as yet equals 39% (52).

Frequency of audits is determined by risk of product/product type, potential business impact, brand and supplier risk.

From full year 2015 a supplier scorecard will be introduced to evaluate suppliers, weighted using different parameters populated by information from audits and its complaint system.

Dewael also highlighted action to manage underperforming suppliers such as an amber supplier having increased maintenance audit frequency with the aim of getting to green in three to six months,

For red suppliers a maintenance audit is conducted by a third party and it will be removed from the approved list if not moving to amber within one month.   

Crisis management plan​

Virginie Rivas, corporate regulation and food safety manager at Groupe Bel, outlined the need for a crisis management plan.

She said there are four main stages: preparation, anticipation and alerts, crisis management and post-crisis management.

After the identification of a crisis, reaction depends on part if it is a local or group issue.

Rivas said firms need to internally assess what is a crisis for them as it will differ from departments to protect group and brand reputation.

With social media and the speed of information, communication is critical to ensure information is accurate, she added.