Test odor of incoming raw materials

Hi,

As part of the receiving policy at a few of the places I've worked off odor was part of the inspection.  As for actually quality testing smell the only thing I've done that on is pasta sauce.

When it's part of receiving we would smell the inside of the trailer to make sure there were no off odors noted that may have permeated into the material to make sure it didn't get into our product.  There was only a few times it really came up.  You could have it on your receiving paperwork to have it checked for odor when being received and beyond that you could have the people on the line perform an odor test... but that's about all you can do that I can think of.

I regularly have my nose in a trailer!!

In fairness, have they issued you with a QAS?

I agree with what Mr I has said, document it. I would think odour is quite subjective! Make sure you have training records for your staff too.

Caz x

Throw them for a loop ask them for a sample of a gold standard for the scent :roflmao:

Hi,

We make plastic trays for direct contact with chocolates. One customer pretend that because of the vague smell of the plastic, chocolate change the taste. We had to made some tests into an external laboratory and we change the plastic, with another one with some special additives (certificate for food).

Otilia

 

Hi,

We make boxes for direct contact with chocolates. A client demands to buy a specific paper we need to use for there packaging and tells us we need to check it when arriving because they know it can smell awful. They tell us also that, when it smells to much, we need to air it.

But, when is a raw material smelling to much? Does anyone has experience with evaluating the smell of paper or cardboard and relating the smell when arriving at your facilities, to the smell it will have when leaving after 10 to sometimes 30 days in production.

Customer does an entrance check (not according to a standard) and refuses now a particular delivery.

 

Do you keep a retain sample so you can possibly determine what they are talking about?  But I do agree with Caz and Mr. I.  It is very subjective and noses will vary.  Mine is fairly sensitive. Is it possible if you are airing out the product until is smells okay but when it is again contained in a shipping box it is allowing the smells to concentrate.  This is a sticky one. 

Chocolate absorbs odor and I'd be upset if the trays for our truffles or packaging paper was making my chocolates smell bad, or if I had complaints from customers.  Is there something different about the material that smells - storage location, a chemical thats strange, different transport?

Robin Son.

No experience with paper quality but for a product like chocolate I could imagine receivers might be choosy.

Food odour, and various other organoleptic characteristics, is notoriously difficult to standardize, even internally. Hence trained evaluatiion panels. Some people simply have different olfactory capabilities.

Based on yr post, the odour aspect should have been clearly defined in the (agreed) product spec. and an acceptable/unacceptable sample demonstrated.

Management often regards this as an unneccesary, time-wasting hindrance to business but once you've experienced a few QA disasters and found yourself in the middle.......

Regarding complaint, sample request is usually the first step followed, depending on the results,  by overt  "challenge" or "damage limitation" (some companies always challenge anyway, the "nothing to lose" principle). The commercial response  may also depend on any desired future business, or not.

Rgds / Charles.C

HI ALL,

Also have experience with the requirement from our customers that we conduct test  on the odor of our packaging

 materials during receipt.

BENITO.