We are a bakery that produces fresh and frozen products as a co-packer for multiple major, national brands as well as multiple store brands. I have been FSQ Manager since 2008. We have had numerous customer audits, as well as 4 BRC audits. We have done very well on all of them, including 4 "A's" from BRC. In February we were audited by our biggest customer and FAILED! Although we did not agree with all of his findings, we had not stopped production at all for sanitation in 6 weeks, and conceded there were issues. This is highly unusual and was due to this same customer asking for more than double the amount of product they usually order. The same guy came back to re-audit us and FAILED us a second time! We just passed our BRC with an A May 1st, and worked on extra sanitation prior to his arrival. The reason for the failure? 3 Criticals which were:
1. A bolt had come loose from a plate on the back of a mixer jacket that had product residue under it and several small flies around it.
2. 3 flour beetles on the OUTSIDE of a sifter. The source was located immediately, which was an area under a gasket that had not been cleaned
3. After having 0 beetles in our tailings for months, we had gone up to 20 after the bag house was cleaned. The amount is comming down, but he is adament that we have an infestation in our flour. Our critical limit for beetles in tailings is 20, and I know where they are comming from, so no corrective action was taken.
He states that 20 is entirely to much, and we should only have 2 or 3. When I asked what the policy was for bakeries owned by them, he replied they didn't have a written limit.
Sorry for writting a book! Just venting I guess. My question is (finally) what should the critical limits be for flour sifter tailings, and am I wrong for disputing the outcome of this audit? Other than the criticals, we had one major (cracked clock) and one minor.