Seafood HACCP - Do I have to comply as a Vending Co.?
Hello,
I work for a vending company. We have vending machines all over the state but do not have any out of state. We also have micro markets, which is essentially a convenience store inside a company. So we receive RTE seafood packaged sandwiches from a company who assembles them and then ships them to us. We store them in our warehouse for a day or two and then delivery them to our vending machines and stock them. The customer does not do anything with the vending machine.
My questions are
Is a vending company considered a retail business because we ship to our own machines and do not ship to other warehouses or convenience stores?
Do we have to follow seafood HACCP guidelines because we carry seafood product?
Everything we carry is packaged in its final form and not reassembled in any way.
This is a very intruding question.
Now, from a logical point of view, if one is selling tuna sandwiches (susceptible to histamine under improper time-temperature control), it would be prudent to know about this type of hazard as the company could be liable for as they "control" the vending machines that control the temperature of the kept product. The company selling the prepared sandwiches is certainly (and are legally required) to control the hazards with the seafood products they are preparing that is in their control, however, they would logically pass on the the continued time-temperature control hazard on to their customers (and justify it so in their HACCP plan).
In the US as far as legal/regulatory requirements, it would be more to understand it these RTE foods are a "Food Service" item or (if the company is internally "vending" the items) if it is considered an actual "retail" product... any FDA auditors on the forum?
-B
Hi biddlecom,
I guess this is a continuation of yr previous seafood vending threads -
http://www.ifsqn.com...mpany-question/
http://www.ifsqn.com...ing-of-seafood/
http://www.ifsqn.com...achine-company/
Is the query in current OP answered in the attachment/post5 of the middle thread ?