42 replies to this topic

[Lorbi]

Hello,

 

Who among you here belongs to a small-medium enterprise company? Have you tried doing a product recall? How did you do it? Or any insights from those who are knowledgeable in this field?

 

Thanks!

 

PS. We already have a product recall document, and we're planning to conduct a mock recall. But, I don't have any experience with that yet aside from conducting complaint handling which usually does not resort to recalling all items.

 

Lorbi

[redfox]

Dear Lorbi,

 

Pray not to have product recall. 

 

First you to make a mock recall procedure. It is just making a scenario that you have product that needs to be recalled. If you have customer abroad, they must inform your site that your product need to be racalled. You need to do traceability and mass balance exercise to trace your product whereabouts and if you still have product in your custody.

 

regards,

redfox

[Lorbi]

Dear redfox,

 

When you conduct the mock recall, do you actually obtain all the products from your customer (given that they are informed of your mock recall)? Or will the products remain in their warehouses and you just obtain information from them?

 

Thanks,

 

Lorbi

[yas]

Hi Lorbi,

 

You just need to inform the customer you will be doing a mock recall exercise beforehand on a certain product (including batch). See the attached document, I usually send this with the email once they agree to take part in the recall exercise.

They don't send the products back to you, just the information on stock found etc. For BRC there's a time limit of completing the recall within 4 hours so I would recommend doing it all through email so you have times recorded to show auditors.

Attached Files

•  Dummy Recall Customer Information Form.doc   31KB   642 downloads

[Charles.C]

Hi Lorbi,

 

You just need to inform the customer you will be doing a mock recall exercise beforehand on a certain product (including batch). See the attached document, I usually send this with the email once they agree to take part in the recall exercise.

They don't send the products back to you, just the information on stock found etc. For BRC there's a time limit of completing the recall within 4 hours so I would recommend doing it all through email so you have times recorded to show auditors.

 

Hi yas,

 

For BRC I think the "4hours" is related to a traceability check (3.9.2).

 

Mock recall (3.11.3), is, rather surprisingly, unquantitated. Could be 4hours of course.

[Biruk]

Hi there,

 

We are doing mock recall also with target of 4hrs duration. But the 4 hour include the time to trace the raw materials, packing materials used, how much is still available in the factory's warehouse, where it is sold and what quantity is remaining in the customer's depots. you don't need to collect the products, it might cause panic for the customers. It is advantageous to include traceablity exercise with the Mock recall. you can conduct both exercises for the same product. 

 

cheers!

[Charles.C]

Hi there,

 

We are doing mock recall also with target of 4hrs duration. But the 4 hour include the time to trace the raw materials, packing materials used, how much is still available in the factory's warehouse, where it is sold and what quantity is remaining in the customer's depots. you don't need to collect the products, it might cause panic for the customers. It is advantageous to include traceablity exercise with the Mock recall. you can conduct both exercises for the same product. 

 

cheers!

 

hi Biruk,

 

Thanks for the input and Welcome to the Forum ! 

 

Don't often hear from Ethiopia.

 

Mock recalls are not always so simple time-wise if the product is exported. (the operative word is "mock" as you indicate)

[Anika]

Hi Lorbi,

 

I conducted a couple of Mock recalls by giving them a 4 hour window too. I would choose a random lot number from the last one year and give them the shipment date, PO number, LOT number and ask them to do a one up and one down traceability.

 

I only asked for Mock recalls for companies that do not have a GFSI recognized scheme and I would request via read only e-mail to mark down the starting time.

[Anika]

I do think though Mock recalls are second best to self auditing but sometimes that might be difficult due to finance, distance and what not.

[pooled]

BRC prefers items in the mock recall to be within possible shelf life, there is no point in trying to trace product from 6 months ago that you know would all be disposed of right now.

After participating in a real recall & several mocks, be very careful on your dialogue when speaking to customers or they may get the wrong idea. During an actual recall I had drivers show up to retrieve A product & were given everything that could possibly be supplied by us at the time instead. Then during a mock recall, called and spoke with one customer about it being a test then while working down the call list had customers calling in saying "Hey I heard from this location you have a recall, whats wrong? and what should we do?" Which just caused alot of headaches.

[redfox]

Hello,

 

Traceability and mass balance on a certain lot or batch which is subjected for mock recall must be done. To trace all your product produced on that said batch or lot, released, and still on custody. NSF requires 99.5 to 105% mass balance %yield.

 

regards,

redfox

[Charles.C]

Hello,

 

Traceability and mass balance on a certain lot or batch which is subjected for mock recall must be done. To trace all your product produced on that said batch or lot, released, and still on custody. NSF requires 99.5 to 105% mass balance %yield.

 

regards,

redfox

 

Hi redfox,

 

is all the above info. specifically for NSF ?

[carine]

Hi Redfox, 

 

Can you pls elaborate more on 99.5 to 105% mass balance %yield.

[Scampi]

When i perform a mock recall I DO NOT contact our customers at all. I verify the contact information on the most recent shipping documents and then with the order desk to make sure they align. There is more harm than good that comes from contacting your customers. If you want, have the order desk performing verification once/year on contact names, numbers and addresses and keep a copy on file. My first mock recall took 4 hours to perform which is more time than I would like, in the event of a real recall you NEED that information to be extremely accessible (read RIGHT NOW). The mock recall is so that you can judge where your failings are, not to panic your customers.

 

We are a slaughter house, so I need to find 98% of incoming birds (to account for catching crews) and 100% of finished goods

[Wowie]

When i perform a mock recall I DO NOT contact our customers at all. I verify the contact information on the most recent shipping documents and then with the order desk to make sure they align. There is more harm than good that comes from contacting your customers. If you want, have the order desk performing verification once/year on contact names, numbers and addresses and keep a copy on file. 

 

 

Exactly the method I follow. I verify with customer representatives that the contact information is accurate, and X, Y, Z are the people I would contact in the event of a product issue. That information gets kept, and has always satisfied BRC. 

[pooled]

A couple auditors have stressed in the past that we actually call, due to the fact it may add to the time it takes to complete & may demonstrate any flaws in the system. I only actually called once in all the years & that seems to suffice. 

[scoot915]

Exactly the method I follow. I verify with customer representatives that the contact information is accurate, and X, Y, Z are the people I would contact in the event of a product issue. That information gets kept, and has always satisfied BRC. ditt

ditto

[redfox]

To all,

 

The %Recovery/Yield is from NSF. NSF is our CB for BRC6 and going to BRC& this June 2016. We been required by them to have within 99.5 to 105% recovery/yield. 

 

NSF_Supplier Assurance

Food Safety Expectations and Criteria for Food Processing Facilities-2014

Page:10

 

3.3b 

Traceability exercise shall demonstrate 99.5 to 105% accounting within 4 hours, taking into account normal loss, wastes and shrinkage.

 

An effective raw material trace exercise is one where a received lot of raw material is traced to all the finished product it was used in and a mass balance calculation achieves 99.5 to105%, taking into account normal yields, loss, wastes and shrinkage.

 

AFAIK, only NSF published a quantified %recovery/yield for traceability exercise.

 

Regards,

redfox

[carine]

hi Redfox, 

 

Mind to share or give example  how is mass balance being calculated? Tks in advance  

[redfox]

Hello Carine,

 

Simply put it, %Yield=Output x100%

                                    Input

 

Input = raw materials

 

Output = finished product +waste(during processing)

 

Finished product = (could be the) product shipped+product in custody+product reworked+product sent to lab +retained sample

 

Regards,

redfox

[GMO]

Not read all the replies but this is how I do it.

 

Set off some kind of prompt which starts the crisis going.  This might be a complaint, a micro result, a test etc.

Drip feed information of this kind throughout the process which helps guide the investigation.  This could include audit records, further complaints, contact from retailers. 

 

Whatever scenario you chose should be severe enough to prompt a recall and I also try and point it towards some kind of conclusion so that the team get a modicum of closure but also know how far to go.  So for example for a metal find I might sneak in a maintenance record showing there was an issue on one batch.  This then forces the team to consider where the rest of the batch has gone.

 

At the end of it, the team should as a minimum have identified where the affected product has gone to depot level (this may become a wider recall later but given the information early on, ideally this should be within 2 hours).  At the end of 4 hours I would expect them to have (fake) communicated the issue and hopefully identified if other batches are impacted.

 

Things I've used in the past have included:

Metal complaints

Pathogenic micro issue

Allergen contamination

 

But I'm thinking for my next one I'm going to link some kind of contamination issue to a site security breach.

 

Can you tell I like doing these? 

[Watanka]

Lorbie,

 

Agree with scampi and Wowie.  We do not contact the customer, but do check records to generate their contact information which is appended to the mock recall report.  We conduct at least two per year, one for a raw ingredient issue; the other for a primary contact packaging issue.  Our window for completion is two hours.  During an unannounced audit last week we completed the task in 1 hour, 25 minutes.  As a part of the documentation for the mock recall, there is a section entitled "Lessons Learned" where we document those tips and techniques or mistakes and pitfalls we want to memorialize for future reference. 

 

The diabolical part of me wants to conduct one of these during off-hours to see how well the team - and their backups - perform in that situation!

 

Good luck!

[GMO]

Lorbie,

 

Agree with scampi and Wowie.  We do not contact the customer, but do check records to generate their contact information which is appended to the mock recall report.  We conduct at least two per year, one for a raw ingredient issue; the other for a primary contact packaging issue.  Our window for completion is two hours.  During an unannounced audit last week we completed the task in 1 hour, 25 minutes.  As a part of the documentation for the mock recall, there is a section entitled "Lessons Learned" where we document those tips and techniques or mistakes and pitfalls we want to memorialize for future reference. 

 

The diabolical part of me wants to conduct one of these during off-hours to see how well the team - and their backups - perform in that situation!

 

Good luck!

 

It's a requirement of one of our codes of practice that one of our recall practices has to be out of hours a year!

[GMO]

The key thing to remember though is a mock recall is not a trace exercise.  Trace can and will be part of it but it is to test whether your crisis response is effective.  You don't do that by one person doing a trace at their desk.  It should be scenario led to comply with people like UK retailers, not sure if it's the same elsewhere but it makes sense to me.

[redfox]

Dear all,

 

It is agreeable that traceability is only a part of mock recall. But it shall be put in mind that if your traceability and mass balance is defective you can lose your entire mock recall.

 

Regards,

redfox