42 replies to this topic

[trubertq]

Goodness I have one company which is organic certified and was told by the auditor that customers HAVE to be contacted.

 

I would expect traceability and contact to be made with customers to be made within 4 hours but confirmation of receipt takes longer due to time zones ( Canadian and US customers).

 

We just did one today and have made contact with all European Customers and are waiting for responses from the North Americans/Canadians.

 

It's amazing how many of the customers have no clue what we are doing! I would have thought Recall tests are de rigeur these days.

[trubertq]

I'm still waiting for  the French to  reply.... 48hrs later... fat lot of use they'd be if it were the real thing!!

 

E mailed, phoned, emailed yesterday, and e mailed again today....

[redfox]

Hello trubertq,

 

Ours when doing mock recall, we will inform to our customer that we will conduct a mock recall. Date and time is set, so that our customer knew we will be sending an email that "one lot has to be recalled because of food safety issue". Those conversation will be our evidence that communication has been done. Better you have contact number via mobile for more quicker communication. Look for a lot code that still in there custody so that doing traceability and mass balance is not difficult.

 

regards,

redfox

[clover]

Hi all, 

 

would a mock recall of ready-to-eat items sent to outlets/cafe's be similar ? What if the affected items that we randomly choose to recall has been sold to customer already? 

[Kehlan]

Clover, if that were the case, then you just need to record the fact of x number of cases being sold to customer.  In a real situation of course, the supermarket would be putting out a notice for the customers to return the product for a refund/replacement.

 

Personally, I've always just emailed the customer, making it very clear it is a MOCK exercise and asked them to acknowledge receipt of the message rather than asking them to do mass balances and stock checks and putting them to unnecessary work.  So far, the BRC auditors have been happy with that

[* Steve]

Make sure that you detail all timings. Ideally these should be completed within 4 hours. You should always try to improve on the time these take you to complete. And also, has many people do, carrying a mock recall out annually is too infrequent.

[* Steve]

..one more thing, always try to have a 'scenario' (glass in product, micro contamination, etc). This gives you more focus on what documentation, outside help,etc that you may need.

[clover]

Clover, if that were the case, then you just need to record the fact of x number of cases being sold to customer.  In a real situation of course, the supermarket would be putting out a notice for the customers to return the product for a refund/replacement.

 

Personally, I've always just emailed the customer, making it very clear it is a MOCK exercise and asked them to acknowledge receipt of the message rather than asking them to do mass balances and stock checks and putting them to unnecessary work.  So far, the BRC auditors have been happy with that

Hi Kehlan, 

 

we are unable to email or track our customers, as in which person bought our pastries from our outlets & cafes which have been produced in our central restaurant. Do you get what I mean? It's a B2C not a B2B business. So, whichever customer bought the contaminated product would be affected without notice. Or there may be a notice for recall, but too late since they might have eaten it. 

[Kehlan]

Hi Kehlan, 

 

we are unable to email or track our customers, as in which person bought our pastries from our outlets & cafes which have been produced in our central restaurant. Do you get what I mean? It's a B2C not a B2B business. So, whichever customer bought the contaminated product would be affected without notice. Or there may be a notice for recall, but too late since they might have eaten it. 

Yes but you DO know (I hope) which cafes or outlets you sent the product to?  These are the people you would be contacting in a product recall.  Now with pastries in a café, theres a good chance, as you say that they have already been sold and eaten, but imagine for a moment, that your pastry is still in transit  to the café, or has just arrived and being unloaded, a timely phone call can (hopefully) stop it going on sale....  or a few might have been sold and eaten but some may still be left in the café and can be removed.

[GMO]

Yes but you DO know (I hope) which cafes or outlets you sent the product to?  These are the people you would be contacting in a product recall.  Now with pastries in a café, theres a good chance, as you say that they have already been sold and eaten, but imagine for a moment, that your pastry is still in transit  to the café, or has just arrived and being unloaded, a timely phone call can (hopefully) stop it going on sale....  or a few might have been sold and eaten but some may still be left in the café and can be removed.

Nice thought but doesn't take into account long and complicated supply chains.  We supply to wholesalers who then supply to shops.  I regularly see my product on sale in places I wasn't expecting to see it in.  I've occasionally asked them where they sourced it from and a key wholesaler tends to come up.

 

This has prompted me to run the next mock recall involving one of these wholesalers though and asking them to mass balance.  So thanks for the tips all!  :-)

[Kehlan]

Nice thought but doesn't take into account long and complicated supply chains.  We supply to wholesalers who then supply to shops.  I regularly see my product on sale in places I wasn't expecting to see it in.  I've occasionally asked them where they sourced it from and a key wholesaler tends to come up.

 

This has prompted me to run the next mock recall involving one of these wholesalers though and asking them to mass balance.  So thanks for the tips all!  :-)

 Well obviously yes, but in a multi step chain, you have to decide where does your responsibility for the product end?  considering some people here are saying they don't involve customers at all in mock recalls.... I would have thought in a mock exercise, its enough to contact the immediate customer... further stages would surely be their responsibility?  the point I was trying to make to Clover was that they can't just hold up their hands and say we wont recall because the final customer might have eaten it by now, that there are still steps that can and should be taken.

[Jcchaser]

A mock recall is over rating I think.  If you able to trace the product back and forward one step.  I think you will pass your Mock Recall.  I am doing a traceability report once per month.  

 

jcchaser    

[redfox]

Hello jcchaser,

 

Mock recall exercise is just a verification or measurement how you react or how long you can trace the affected product when the actual recall happens.

 

regards,

redfox

[Foibe]

Hi All. When can one say a mock recall/actual recall was successful? After recalling what percentage of the product? And within what time frame?

[SteveHather]

Hi,

 

Good point made by "GMO" above about a mock recall being more than a traceability exercise. 

 

Many companies conduct a "mock recall" but they are actually just a traceability exercise. Traceability is a really important part of a recall procedure and many companies struggle with it so not trying to downplay its importance, but generally speaking incidents and recalls escalate into a brand crisis because the company does not engage well with key stakeholders - customer, consumers, regulators, media, shareholders. Social media means a broad range of people will find out about and comment on a recall but the focus of attention will not be the incident itself but how the company is managing it. 

 

If you are going to conduct a "mock recall" you really need to include both an exercise of your internal procedures and engaging externally. This can generally be done by role-playing some key stakeholders, but some of my more advanced clients do actually involve their customers and in a couple of cases even regulators in the mock recall so they can practice that critical aspect of stakeholder engagement.

 

When we do simulations, we always include role playing of key stakeholders and this is the area that companies always struggle with, not the internal technical part of a recall  or the actual logistics part. However this type of simulation will better prepare you for a real incident and prevent escalation into a brand crisis. Make sure you also dummy up some social media posts and develop a strategy for responding as part of your communication plan!

 

If anyone is interested, I have a two page "cheat sheet" - "10 quick tips for realistic recall simulations", that I am happy to email to you. Just email me at xxxx

 

Regards, Steve

Edited by Charles.C, 29 November 2017 - 08:34 AM.
email deleted, spam magnet

[SteveHather]

Hi All. When can one say a mock recall/actual recall was successful? After recalling what percentage of the product? And within what time frame?

Hi, 

 

Retreival rates are often used to determine whether a recall has been effective however, this is not the only means of evaluating a recall. If you are in the food industry, retrieval rates are actually a poor indicator as they are generally very low. 

 

Remember that the purpose of a recall is to reduce risk - health and safety risk to consumers first and foremost, but also to reduce reputation risk and brand damage. Your mock recall should include elements of both. You may actually reduce the risk to consumers most effectively by letting them know what the risk is and what they can do about it so measuring effectiveness of communications is a key metric.

 

The international standard provides the following areas for measuring effectiveness:

• Locating all affected product
• Retrieval/return rates
• Disposal/destruction rates
• Injury rates
• Enquiry/complaints
• Communication effectiveness

What that means is that if you really want to measure whether a recall has been effective, you need to measure more than just retrieval!

 

Regards, Steve

[GMO]

 

When we do simulations, we always include role playing of key stakeholders and this is the area that companies always struggle with, not the internal technical part of a recall  or the actual logistics part. However this type of simulation will better prepare you for a real incident and prevent escalation into a brand crisis. Make sure you also dummy up some social media posts and develop a strategy for responding as part of your communication plan!

 

 

I do that and the first time I convinced our Marketing Manager that they were real (by accident, I wasn't trying to wind her up).  She thought I'd posted tweets then taken a screen grab.  Bless her.

[SteveHather]

Well done making it feel realistic to them GMO! 

 

I learned a valuable lesson the hard way many years ago running a crisis simulation in a South East Asian country. Despite making it very clear that there were to be no external calls and all internal calls were to be prefaced with "this is an exercise", a well meaning MD called the head of the police force to talk about a "hypothetical scenario" and next thing we knew there were sirens and flashing lights! 

 

When doing product recall simulations, we brief all participants prior to the start about making it clear to anyone they speak to that "this is an exercise" and overstamp everything "exercise only". We only involve external parties when they have been briefed as well but generally role play external parties, particularly the media!