Human grade vs. Pet food

This may sound alittle strange, but, I work for a company that has done Pet Products and Food (Ferrets, small animals) for many years. They had a seperate division for ingredients were they would dry fruit pomace left over from juicing facilities and mill it down to a fiber or powder as a pet food ingredient. I was hired by the company last year when they decided to move the ingredients division into human grade food. They built a whole new facility and are shortly going to complete our SQF level 2 audit.

What I find strange is the Pet food side had no programs in place for what they were doing. Seperate building, same parent company. Now we know that the FDA and USDA are going to come in to look at the Pet division. I have been put in charge of setting up all there programs. For the most part they receive and then ship with our label. They are not really manufactoring or processing anything. So now I have to figure out were to start. My first thought was to set in place a suppllier approval program, inventory tracking, and recall and traceability. Do you really need a HACCP program when you are not touching or changing the product? If yes, what would be your CCP? I could see a defense program, but not sure about a HACCP program?

If anyone has any tips or any ideas you would like to pass along it would be really appreciated.

Thank you.

Dear ScottE,

Must admit i didn't quite understand the situation you described, ie process or no process ? .

Well, for HACCP (and even ISO 22000 !) for petfood, I suggest you should try googling FEDIAF. But perhaps you know all about this amazing organisation already.

Rgds / Charles.C

Scott,

I am the president of Liberty quality consulting llc and I would be happy to come out and lend a helping hand or arrange and arrange for some consulting with you. I have been in the pet food industry for over 7 years working for Mars Pet Care. You can read about what I offer and I am sure we can help with your upcoming FDA audit.

The FDA requirements for pet food are similar to the human food requirements if not even more stringent as there have been several known cases of human sickness from contamination in pet food. The logic is that humans handle this food and have it readily available in their houses. As well children may ingest this food by mistake and hence we must protect our customers and consumers.

Thanks

Dave R

Warehouses need HACCP so I would think your operation would too. Just because you can't think of a CCP does not mean you don't need HACCP but could you extend an existing HACCP plan to cover this process?

Scott,

I agree with all of the points made in this thread.

I have more than 30 years experience in the petfood industry and the standards and expectations with respect to quality have been increasing throughout this time.

Key thing as GMO stated you need to think about the full supply chain. Applying the same philosophy as the human food sector, where a "Field to Fork" approach is often adopted, you need to think of this in terms of where you sit in the overall "Field to Feeding Bowl" chain and make sure you cover off all appropriate sections of the chain.

I also highly recommend that you look at the FEDIAF website. Although European in context this will give you a good indication of how people across the pond see petfood safety.

Am happy to discuss this further openly through this forum. However, if there are any points you want to follow up in private please send me a message and we can start a dialogue.

Good luck.

DP2006