Good Morning Folks (or afternoon, evening, etc ),
I've recently come to a small company as the only meat production facility. So, I'm kind of out here on my own little island.
Without completely taking away from the current set up of things, I've found a lot of ways paperwork can be reduced and documents can be improved. I'm working on that now (so this is the first of many questions to come, I'm sure). I'm currently working on the GMP audit format. I've mostly kept their item list, but made it more concise and removed some oddball items (like that smocks, aprons, trousers and shirts worn on the production floor can't be worn outside ). They had a few items that were highlighted in red on the form and listed as CRITICAL. I have previously used a few different systems for designating issues that may potentially, or may have already, resulted in food product issues. However, items like the cleanliness and condition of walls had this designation. I've never seen an area or item to be audited given that type of designation on a GMP audit form prior to an issue being identified. In the instance pointed out, flaking paint at the floor level on a wall would be noted, but with no product reconditioning program, it would hardly constitute a CRITICAL exclamation. It made me pretty uneasy, and I removed the critical designation, opting instead to modify the GMP Auditing procedure to state that items posing an immediate threat to food safety would require immediate line stoppage and corrective action to be documented on the auditing form.
Sorry for the book! I have been looking at these same documents since Friday!
Does anyone have any history with BRC or customers expecting to see that designation so arbitrarily? I can't find anything in previous audit findings here that would have caused such a remark on the form.