Rejects at receiving vs products that have reached best before date

What is the best way to distinguish between rejects at receiving (lose pack, wrong label, etc.) as against products that have reached best before date? There are instances when the product just looks spoiled even though it was received in good condition and still has not reached the best before date. This can be due to bad handling or a break down of the chiller or other factors. How do you deal with that?

In case of any doubts, consider it as a non conformed product and keep in the assigned area with proper tagging. As the product quality is still under investigation, define a criteria of ' under investigating product' and 'rejected product'. You can color code the tag. Say yellow color with DOnt use label for under investigation and red tag for rejected product. Then raise a product non confromance report, investigate and indentify the root cause. If its related to supplier take corrective action through them. If its related to your team, raise corrective action and assign to your team. If required, product can sent to the laboratory to confirm the quality of the food ( as representative sample of a consignment)

regards
Jomy Abraham

What is the best way to distinguish between rejects at receiving (lose pack, wrong label, etc.) as against products that have reached best before date? There are instances when the product just looks spoiled even though it was received in good condition and still has not reached the best before date. This can be due to bad handling or a break down of the chiller or other factors. How do you deal with that?

In case of any doubts, consider it as a non conformed product and keep in the assigned area with proper tagging. As the product quality is still under investigation, define a criteria of ' under investigating product' and 'rejected product'. You can color code the tag. Say yellow color with DOnt use label for under investigation and red tag for rejected product. Then raise a product non confromance report, investigate and indentify the root cause. If its related to supplier take corrective action through them. If its related to your team, raise corrective action and assign to your team. If required, product can sent to the laboratory to confirm the quality of the food ( as representative sample of a consignment)

regards
Jomy Abraham

Hi jomy,

Thank you for the practical advice. I'll put all this in a procedure, present to the management and seek for their feedback.