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pad

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Posted 23 September 2016 - 08:46 AM

Hello everybody

Recently, I started working as a Technical manager for a distributor company that is based in the Netherlands and is focused on the supply of flowers, herbs and vegetables from Africa to various retailers in Europe. As a recent graduate from my master in food quality management my experience in designing quality management systems is limited to 2 projects (one for ISO22000 and one for HACCP). Hence, i am not exactly a beginner but i have still a lot to learn and ask :P 
Any tips or feedback is more than welcome. 

 

Kind Regards

Pad



Foodworker

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Posted 23 September 2016 - 10:52 AM

I would assume that you are fulfilling a technical link role between your suppliers and customers.

 

The first thing that I suggest that you do is look at your customers' requirements - Codes of Practice, previous reports etc to understand what they are looking for and potential gaps. Unless yours is a new company there will be a bit of history to go back to - review it and improve it. 

 

The UK retailers have very precise requirements and I am sure it is the same for most of the others.  

 

Get a clear understanding of the extent of your brief - is it simply control of packhouses or are you responsible for the growers as well? Does it include the ethical side?

 

The African vegetable companies that I have seen have generally been very good and are often better that many UK organisations but tend to need a lot of hand holding when new projects come along.

 

Your question was quite open but you will no doubt have specific queries as you go along.

 



pad

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Posted 23 September 2016 - 12:21 PM

I would assume that you are fulfilling a technical link role between your suppliers and customers.

 

The first thing that I suggest that you do is look at your customers' requirements - Codes of Practice, previous reports etc to understand what they are looking for and potential gaps. Unless yours is a new company there will be a bit of history to go back to - review it and improve it. 

 

The UK retailers have very precise requirements and I am sure it is the same for most of the others.  

 

Get a clear understanding of the extent of your brief - is it simply control of packhouses or are you responsible for the growers as well? Does it include the ethical side?

 

The African vegetable companies that I have seen have generally been very good and are often better that many UK organisations but tend to need a lot of hand holding when new projects come along.

 

Your question was quite open but you will no doubt have specific queries as you go along.

Thanks for your reply.
Just to give some more info. my company wants to get BRC certified. We tried to get certified 2 years ago but we resulted with 8 major and 14 minor non conformities (maybe because i was not working here yet :p )... the biggest part of the company is focused on the floral market but we have increasingly demand for vegetables and herbs so now it is time to make it work. There are procedures and forms and WI in place but they need a lot of improvement. My role is like a Quality manager that will try to build the quality department. As i already said we receive airplane pallets from Africa (you are right that some times they behave a lot better than the european ones) that includes both boxes of flowers and packed vegetables and herbs and we send to wholesales and retailers everywhere in Europe. No processing at all. in the site I want only to do some quality inspection and maybe prepare some samples. 
My first question is i): BRC is regarding food so do i have to include in flow charts, risk analysis etc the flowers' flow or i completely demarcate on food products ?
                              ii) I worked in the preparation of 2 quality management systems but not completely so i dont feel so confident to fulfill  this project. Do you think ii would be better to get some BRC training? 

 

Kind Regards

Pad



 



Foodworker

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Posted 25 September 2016 - 02:44 PM

The BRC also has Standards applicable to non foods and other activities. From what you say, you do not process/repack either flowers or vegetables so you are in a bit of a grey area with respect to which BRC Standard you come under. It is likely that you fall into the scope of the BRC Storage and Distribution Standard, but I would suggest that you contact the BRC directly to get a ruling to ensure that you prepare the correct system. 





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