20 replies to this topic

[Jinan]

Hi Everyone,

I have hit a blank, and my creative flare has come to a halt. - Doe anyone have any forms or insipartions to help me combat this clause?

BRC issue 6 3.5.1.1
The Company Shall undertake a documented risk assesment of each raw material to identify potential risks ....

Account for
Allergen Contamination
Foreign Body Risk
Micro Contamination
Chemical Contamination

[GMO]

We already had a list of every raw material with supplier information in a table with overall 'score' and complaints info too. All I did was put in 6 extra columns for the following:

Chemical risk
Microbiological risk
Physical risk
Allergen risk
Impact on quality of the product
Total risk (which was a combination of the above 5)

I graded all of this high, medium or low.

Basically I only thought about contamination risks from my knowledge of the ingredient and supplier and previous experience wrt my product and process. I then used this assessment to work out the audit frequency.

Sorry I don't like to attach the actual documents because they belong to our company and my approach might not be sensible for you. I mean, this document was only 3 pages long because we don't buy that many ingredients but for, say, a ready meal manufacturer which might have thousands it would make more sense to group things together, e.g. spices, dairy, raw meat, cooked meat etc.

[Harminnie]

We're starting to work on the same assessment. I've included a sample of the direction we're going with it, although it is not complete. We're opting for the "group of raw materials", and I can see already that we need to separate them a bit more. Hope this gives you food for thought.

[Harminnie]

We're starting to work on the same assessment. I've included a sample of the direction we're going with it, although it is not complete. We're opting for the "group of raw materials", and I can see already that we need to separate them a bit more. Hope this gives you food for thought.

Hope it came through this time.

Attached Files

•  3.5.1 Raw Material Risk Assessment.docx   19.27KB   3487 downloads

[mgourley]

I would think this should already be a part of your HACCP Plan. Just reference to that.
It would be the same format as any of your other Hazard Analysis for your Process Flow Charts.
You should be able to get most of the information required from the Product Specification sheets from the ingredient manufacturer.

Here is an example:


Marshall

Attached Files

•  Ingredient Hazard Analysis.pdf   12.44KB   2886 downloads

[Charles.C]

Dear Jinan,

The standard does mention safety, legality and quality. "Quality" is (BRC) undefined of course. "Contamination" is defined in the glossary.

This is BRC covering (due diligencing) the (final) receiver's backs as far as possible.

Basically this paragraph is asking you to (risk) validate yr specifications for input materials (eg how did you decide on what to check ?, how to check it?,).

As illustrated in previous posts, the safety-related part (and maybe some overlapping legality) should have been done for yr hazard analysis. Presumably "quality" is the non-safety "contamination" part here (and maybe overlapping legality again).

Or perhaps some people ignore the non-safety bit ?

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

Bizarre as this may sound, I think this goes above and beyond most HACCP plans simply because we're not great at recording in HACCP where things aren't an issue.

Personally this is in my quality manual but I see no reason not to put it into your HACCP plan if you want (although the 'quality' issue might stick with some people including me.)

This was mentioned in the BRC briefing I went to. As far as I understood it, the point of this wasn't necessarily to change the checks you did at intake but to justify your overall SQA controls including intake checks, SAQs, audit frequency etc. The point David Brackston made was flour is a pretty low risk ingredient but to a bakery, flour is vital so the 'quality' aspect is about what influence that ingredient has on the quality of your product. I remember working in ready meals where we had issue after issue with fresh herbs. These were being put on top of a ready meal and so were very visible to the consumer. Our supplier didn't understand this and it was only when I explained how we were using them that the quality improved. For another customer using them in a sauce, the appearance wouldn't have been a big deal.

As I said though, this is as much to justify a lack of checks than to give yourself more to do and I'm certainly not always great at recording that in HACCP especially at such a detailed level, i.e. I don't need to go and audit the salt supplier because...

Actually I was wrong, I've just checked my procedure and I've done it by supplier. The auditor was fine with it though.

I've taken off the business critical stuff from my form and attached it now.

 RM Supplier Base Risk Assesment Matrix v7.xls   37.5KB   5003 downloads

[DP2006]

Bizarre as this may sound, I think this goes above and beyond most HACCP plans simply because we're not great at recording in HACCP where things aren't an issue.

Personally this is in my quality manual but I see no reason not to put it into your HACCP plan if you want (although the 'quality' issue might stick with some people including me.)

This was mentioned in the BRC briefing I went to. As far as I understood it, the point of this wasn't necessarily to change the checks you did at intake but to justify your overall SQA controls including intake checks, SAQs, audit frequency etc. The point David Brackston made was flour is a pretty low risk ingredient but to a bakery, flour is vital so the 'quality' aspect is about what influence that ingredient has on the quality of your product. I remember working in ready meals where we had issue after issue with fresh herbs. These were being put on top of a ready meal and so were very visible to the consumer. Our supplier didn't understand this and it was only when I explained how we were using them that the quality improved. For another customer using them in a sauce, the appearance wouldn't have been a big deal.

As I said though, this is as much to justify a lack of checks than to give yourself more to do and I'm certainly not always great at recording that in HACCP especially at such a detailed level, i.e. I don't need to go and audit the salt supplier because...

Actually I was wrong, I've just checked my procedure and I've done it by supplier. The auditor was fine with it though.

I've taken off the business critical stuff from my form and attached it now.

 RM Supplier Base Risk Assesment Matrix v7.xls   37.5KB   5003 downloads

GMO, couldn't agree more with your comment that:-

we're not great at recording in HACCP where things [i]aren't[/i] an issue.

At the risk of making for extensive documentation which I have seen with some clients,if you've assessed a hazard / risk combination and reached the conclusion ( in your opinion ) that the overall risk rating (severity of effect / likelihood of occurrence) is "Low" get the thought process and conclusion down on paper.

At least this demonstrates that you have considered all potential risks / hazards and the logic behind your decision that the overall risk rating is "Low".

Get it down on paper!

[Jinan]

This is an excellent example! - Thank you very much, I like the way it is layed out, and hits several 'clauses with 1 stone '

[Cranberry]

I have run a system similar to GMO's. I grouped the the raw materials in terms of supplier and then combined the risk assessment with the supplier and raw material approval process. It takes a bit of work to set up and maintain but the system flew through BRC6 and was useful in terms of the allergen section of the standard as well.

[Miroslav Suska]

RM Supplier Base Risk Assesment Matrix v7.xls is quide good example how to solve BRC 6 requirement. In my opinion, there is further consequence which is the smapling plan. Based on the assessment results, it is often possible to optimize the sampling (reduced for lower risk raw materials and consistently well performing suppliers and extended for higher risk raw materials and suppliers). This is on going work as the suppliers are changing and new issues are comming but it allows to focus on problematic areas. That means also that for the same raw materials, sampling or controls may differ for different suppliers.

[Jo Soap]

This has been a great help to me. I love the simplicity of your excel sheet.
Many thanks

Bizarre as this may sound, I think this goes above and beyond most HACCP plans simply because we're not great at recording in HACCP where things aren't an issue.

Personally this is in my quality manual but I see no reason not to put it into your HACCP plan if you want (although the 'quality' issue might stick with some people including me.)

This was mentioned in the BRC briefing I went to. As far as I understood it, the point of this wasn't necessarily to change the checks you did at intake but to justify your overall SQA controls including intake checks, SAQs, audit frequency etc. The point David Brackston made was flour is a pretty low risk ingredient but to a bakery, flour is vital so the 'quality' aspect is about what influence that ingredient has on the quality of your product. I remember working in ready meals where we had issue after issue with fresh herbs. These were being put on top of a ready meal and so were very visible to the consumer. Our supplier didn't understand this and it was only when I explained how we were using them that the quality improved. For another customer using them in a sauce, the appearance wouldn't have been a big deal.

As I said though, this is as much to justify a lack of checks than to give yourself more to do and I'm certainly not always great at recording that in HACCP especially at such a detailed level, i.e. I don't need to go and audit the salt supplier because...

Actually I was wrong, I've just checked my procedure and I've done it by supplier. The auditor was fine with it though.

I've taken off the business critical stuff from my form and attached it now.

 RM Supplier Base Risk Assesment Matrix v7.xls   37.5KB   5003 downloads

[Geetika]

Here you go:) Hope this will give you an idea

Attached Files

•  2.4.5.3 Supplier Approval Program.pdf   157.12KB   2104 downloads

[Charles.C]

Here you go:) Hope this will give you an idea

 

Hi Geetika,

 

Thanks for the attachment and welcome to the Forum !

 

I deduce the Program included was not specifically addressed to BRC but interesting nonetheless. Thks.

[techgirl]

Hi I have been working most of the day on updating my supplier approval risk assessment and still struggling to find a scoring system for it.  I then found this article and it throws a different light on approval of suppliers.  Does anyone have a recent template to use?  We are a fresh fruit salad supplier with long standing supplier relationships and rarely change suppliers. 

Thanks in advance for your help

http://www.techni-k....val#comment-818

[m.erzetti]

Bizarre as this may sound, I think this goes above and beyond most HACCP plans simply because we're not great at recording in HACCP where things aren't an issue.

Personally this is in my quality manual but I see no reason not to put it into your HACCP plan if you want (although the 'quality' issue might stick with some people including me.)

This was mentioned in the BRC briefing I went to. As far as I understood it, the point of this wasn't necessarily to change the checks you did at intake but to justify your overall SQA controls including intake checks, SAQs, audit frequency etc. The point David Brackston made was flour is a pretty low risk ingredient but to a bakery, flour is vital so the 'quality' aspect is about what influence that ingredient has on the quality of your product. I remember working in ready meals where we had issue after issue with fresh herbs. These were being put on top of a ready meal and so were very visible to the consumer. Our supplier didn't understand this and it was only when I explained how we were using them that the quality improved. For another customer using them in a sauce, the appearance wouldn't have been a big deal.

As I said though, this is as much to justify a lack of checks than to give yourself more to do and I'm certainly not always great at recording that in HACCP especially at such a detailed level, i.e. I don't need to go and audit the salt supplier because...

Actually I was wrong, I've just checked my procedure and I've done it by supplier. The auditor was fine with it though.

I've taken off the business critical stuff from my form and attached it now.

RM Supplier Base Risk Assesment Matrix v7.xls

Thank you. I have one similar but the BRC auditor sign this NC "3.5.1.1 Different raw materials and packaging are not evaluated within specific hazard analysis to evaluate the risk"

I was not present during the audit but the Client said to me the the procedure was not correct. Hmmmmmm

[Ansh3]

Thanks all for sharing the excel & sheet. Helped us a lot

[Diana Diez Barrios]

Thank you. I have one similar but the BRC auditor sign this NC "3.5.1.1 Different raw materials and packaging are not evaluated within specific hazard analysis to evaluate the risk"

I was not present during the audit but the Client said to me the the procedure was not correct. Hmmmmmm

Hi M.eretti, I had the same problem !!! How did you solve it?

[Charles.C]

Hi M.eretti, I had the same problem !!! How did you solve it?

 

Hi Diana,

 

You are querying a 1-year old post so maybe some delay although the poster still looks in occasionally.

 

My guess is the NC meant that the specific hazards were not properly defined (eg "pathogenic bacteria").

[Diana Diez Barrios]

Hi Diana,

You are querying a 1-year old post so maybe some delay although the poster still looks in occasionally.

My guess is the NC meant that the specific hazards were not properly defined (eg "pathogenic bacteria").

[Diana Diez Barrios]

hello Charles! thanks anyway for your answer! but I will try to explain to you what the auditor has requested. He mentions that we have not analyzed the wooden pallets or the needles we use to sew the bags, those items are not raw materials at all, but according to him we did not have a study that defines those items as or not, part of the process.