Adhesive tapes manufacture- need of a Food Safety Management System?

Good morning everyone,

I have a simple (and maybe silly) question.

Imagine a factory producing -among other labels- adhesive tapes, some of which are being sold to food companies to put on to their products (in no case in direct contact with food of course).

In your opinion, does this factory need a food safety management system?

Thx in adnvance for your help

Evangelia

Dear Evangelia,

Welcome to the Club!!

I dont think its a silly question. And even I guess you should put this Topic on the Food Safety Discussion, so you can get more interesting feedback from the members.

IMO, I dont think it will need a FSMS, coz FSMS is to ensure that your products are safe for human consumption. And since no food is produced on the tapes factories, why should they bother it? But some costumers may requesting statement from packaging factories, that they are selling a food-grade products and/or not containing toxic chemical/material (the adhesives, for instance).

So I guess the FSMS wont be a necessary for an adhesive tapes factory, but they need to consider the material of their products before selling it to the Food Industries.


Regards,


Arya

Food safety management system are suitable in any aspect of the food chain where the end product has to be safe for consumption. Therefore IMO, the factory which produces adhesive tapes which are not in direct contact with the food may not require a food safety system. Quality standards would suit better.

Dear evangelia,

Not my knowledge base but the answer may also depend on the tape function.
I hv used wide adhesive tape to strap cartons containing food inside (within plastic bags). We found that cheap tape apparently had variable strength and some rolls wouldn't take all the manual handling with predictable results. Strength is a significant hazard to the intended product ? Just speculating.

It's OT but I hv encountered a related scenario at a carton manufacturing factory. The outer cartons were produced in a rather relaxed style from material components not specifically "food grade standard" due to the non-direct contact propety. Inner cartons which actually held the product came from an adjoining facility with tight controls over everything. I asked the question as to what happens if an inner box opens releasing the product. Answer - it's never happened. Hmmm, it's certainly happened to me.

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Evangelia,

Even though no contact with food your products are taken into a food factory and handled by food handlers - are they? As such your products must not introduce any contamination.

In the BRC Global Standard for Packaging and Packaging Materials Issue 3 you would be considered a category 2 supplier with requirements that are less stringent than for direct contact packaging.

Read more about the standard here

Regards,
Simon

Good morning everyone,

I have a simple (and maybe silly) question.

Imagine a factory producing -among other labels- adhesive tapes, some of which are being sold to food companies to put on to their products (in no case in direct contact with food of course).

In your opinion, does this factory need a food safety management system?

Thx in adnvance for your help

Evangelia

IMO... Any agent that direct contact with food have to no contaminate the food that cause any hazard risk to human.. for example is lubrican, if the lubricant direct contact to the food, we have to make sure that lubrican is food grade...

The lubricant cause as same as adhesive tapes....so to assure that product (adhesives tapes) is safe.. better the company have a system to control, like HACCP,..

thats my opinion....

Thank you all very much for your help.

Just one more comment on this. If the majority of tapes you produce are for non food customers, you could operate a segregated / dedicated area or production line for producing tapes for your food customers; here you could operate to the higher standards without over burdening the whole factory with unnecessary procedures. That said it is often not practical to do this due to the factory layout, number of available machines etc. If it is possible this would be perfectly acceptable.

Regards,
Simon