Is raw material country of origin necessary ?

(Note split from -

http://www.ifsqn.com...tions-approval/

I have read the conversations in this chain and I have another question.

When we receive ingredients from our suppliers, we ask for country of origin and some suppliers have a very detailed country of origin for their products while the others are not so much. Now, the question is do we require the supplier to list the country of origin of each ingredient that goes into the product they supply us or will it be sufficient to know where their product that they supply to us is coming from?

Will look forward to your responses as am not quite sure what is required.

Thank you in advance.

RTP

Dear RTP,

This really depends wherefore you need the information.

If you need the information because your customer is requesting it from you, go as far as your customer goes.

If you need this information to cover specific risks, or to be an input to your HACCP study or vulnerability study, go as far as you need.

Hello Madam A. D-tor,

Thank you for your answer. It is helpful.

You are 2nd auditor that I know of in this forum. Interesting job indeed.

RTP

If you are supplying to any Australian customers, our Country of Origin labelling laws are quite strict and require suppliers to provide lots of detail for ingredients and finished products.  They are, in fact, currently being upgraded to become more strict. 

Italy is also increasing its laws around of Country of Origin labelling, so it's good to keep that in mind if you are exporting.

Businesses in your country are also increasingly wanting to be able to show that they have full 'transparency' for their supply chains as well, which requires plenty of detail about origin.  As Madam D-Tor said, do as much as your customers need. 

Be sure to look carefully at the new FSMA guidelines from the FDA - I don't remember the specifics off-hand, but I'm fairly certain there is a lot said about Foreign Supplier Verification, which would, to me, imply that the FDA is quite concerned about the country of origin.