4 replies to this topic

[Cristina L]

Hello,

 

If are here person from poulty industry , please can you give me some advice.

 

The raw material for the slaughterhouse are the live birds from the same company. The company has an integrated system.

 

I dont have any ideea what records can be analized  for the performance monitoring and how to comply with all the requirements 3.5.

 I think  the 5.4 for this raw material in not need of VA.

 

 

How do you perform the Supplier Approval and performance monitoring for the chicken farms?

 

Any advice is apreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

Cristina

[JohnWheat]

At live bird intake to slaughter house the obvious things to monitor would be wing damage, health/condition, hock burn, weight range, full crops etc.

Easy enough to set KPI targets based on given criteria you want and then put them into a spread sheet. Being integrated and that you HAVE to use the supply farms, how you deal with fails will the more difficult task I would suggest.  All this is assuming they all belong to you?

If the farms/slaughter hall doesn't belong to you then the slaughter hall and process company should have the supply approval monitoring not you. All you need from them is prove the supply farm(s) are certificated and approved by your country's approval scheme.

[Cristina L]

Many thanks John,

 

All the farms (10) and the slaughterhouse  are from the same company. I have difficulties to put in place a vulnerability assessment for the slaughterhouse.

 

What we can take into acount for comply with the 5.4.2 for the raw material - live bird-chicken ?

 

I have no ideea to put in place the above queries for this raw material, please coud give me some help.

5.4.2 A documented vulnerability assessment shall be carried out on all food raw materials or groups of raw materials to assess the potential risk of adulteration or substitution. This shall take into account:

•  historical evidence of substitution or adulteration

•  economic factors which may make adulteration or substitution more attractive

•  ease of access to raw materials through the supply chain

•  sophistication of routine testing to identify adulterants

•  nature of the raw material.

The vulnerability assessment shall be kept under review to reflect changing economic circumstances and market intelligence which may alter the potential risk. It shall be formally reviewed annually.

 

Many thanks,

Cristina

[Kehlan]

This isn't actually as hard as you think. I would start by drawing up a process flow, but starting right from the beginning, so you list every stage of supply... so in my industry it would be something like this... buy seeds... plant them... grow the crop.. harvest... transport to packhouse.. QC checks, storage packing... transport to UK... arrive at UK packhouse.. QC checks, storage, packing, send to customer.

 

From that you can start looking at areas where the product might be vulnerable and build up a a picture of where all the threats and vulnerabilities are and decide what, if anything can be done to mitigate the risk..

 

The PAS  guide is really useful and it lists a load of questions that are worth taking some time to answer as part of this process.

[Charles.C]

Hi Christina,

 

This not my product/process area so somewhat speculative.

 

May need to differentiate “VA” and “TACCP”. These terms have acquired a variety of meanings. BRC, I think, closely follows GFSI’s VA definitions.

 

afaik BRC’s interpretation of  VA in 5.4.2  is aimed at validating authenticity of the “raw material” (RM) in respect to the sold product, ie  checking for substitution/adulteration (S/A) in the “raw material”  "supply chain".

 

afaik, It is not related to process stages for the finished product other than the detection capability for (S/A) at the initial RM reception stage.

 

I presume the raw material here is live chicken, finished product unknown, and the VA refers to possible substitution/adulteration (S/A) of RM. An analysis for (S/A)  would presumably depend on  the precise specification of the finished product/labelling, eg the nature, variety, quality ( species ?, Organic? etc). Clauses 5.4.(1, 3-6) are also relevant.

 

Offhand, if the above interpretation correct and based on the OP’s stated integration,  the VA should not be particularly difficult but the vulnerability possibilities/history (if any), of this product/process unknown to me.

 

The actual presentation of the various stages of  generic VA’s  has been detailed in previous threads here.

 

I assume “TACCP” as applied to the site activities is “equivalent”  to  BRC’s food defense clause.