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Specifications for product supplied by Agents / Brokers

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carterpoultex

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Posted 07 November 2017 - 09:42 AM

Hello

 

I am wondering if someone might be able to answer a question I have regarding product specifications.

 

As an Agent/Broker we purchase all of the products (take ownership) which we are selling prior to delivering into any of our customers.
 

As we effectively own the products which we sell, we then create full product specifications under our own trading name - based on the specifications, information & product photos supplied to us by the manufacturers (in some cases, as we include all of the information supplied to us, our specifications are in fact more detailed than the original ones supplied to us by the maunfacutrers. we do not include any information NOT supplied by the manufacturing plant in our specs).

 

My question is this, if we supply a product specification to every customer on purchasing any new product from us, requesting their authorisation & return of a signed copy to confirm they are happy to proceed with their purchsase based on the information contained within the spec, is the customer within their right to then request the original specs which we have from the manufacturer, rather then our specs which we have given them?

 

Any thoughts/ help/ advice is greatly appreciated



BrummyJim

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Posted 07 November 2017 - 02:31 PM

My understanding is that the customer is buying the product based on your specs, so they don't need to see the original specs. However, they are allowed to request the name and supporting info to identify the original processor/manufacturer.



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probard

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Posted 08 November 2017 - 04:46 PM

Hello,

 

I disagree with BrummyJim : the Client cannot demand to know the Name of the supplier (except for products with health stamp, where the Client can see it for himself). In the IFS Broker Standard, it is specifically said that the Client does NOT always know the supplier, for competitivity reasons.

 

However, of course, it can be a Commercial bargaining to disclose the Name of the supplier. For your Client, it might be enough to garantee that all Information is exact and checked with the supplier?

 

Regards



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BrummyJim

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Posted 08 November 2017 - 04:59 PM

However, in the BRC standard, you always need to know the last processor for traceability purposes. There is a challenge here.



carterpoultex

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Posted 08 November 2017 - 05:04 PM

Thank you probard, however this is where I believe things are becomming a little confusing -
 
In the newly revised Issue 2 for the standard for Agents & Brokers  under section 3 - PRODUCT SAFETY AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
subsection 3.4.3 has been added as follows 
 
3.4.3 Where required by the customer, the company shall provide information to enable the last manufacturer or processor of the product to be approved. This shall include the identity of this manufacturer or processor.
 
 
This new clause has been explained by a third party consultancy company as follows – New Clause states that where the agent or broker is asked for information regarding the last processor, that they must provide it. i.e. it is no longer acceptable to say that this information is confidential.
 
 
Discuss???


moskito

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Posted 11 November 2017 - 03:48 PM

Hi,

 

independent on any standard: If we buy from a trader/broker we accept the specification of this company because the legal responsibility is with the trader especially if he is the impoter to the EU. But in some cases we require additional informations which has to be added to the spec. In any case we have a special questionaire which has to be filled and signed by the producing plant.

This is our prerequisite for traders/brokers. Not easy and it does not work in any case. You have to start any negotiation telling this prerequisite (YES or NO), otherwise you loose time.

 

Rgds

moskito



FFad

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Posted 14 May 2018 - 01:49 PM

Hello,

 

I disagree with BrummyJim : the Client cannot demand to know the Name of the supplier (except for products with health stamp, where the Client can see it for himself). In the IFS Broker Standard, it is specifically said that the Client does NOT always know the supplier, for competitivity reasons.

 

However, of course, it can be a Commercial bargaining to disclose the Name of the supplier. For your Client, it might be enough to garantee that all Information is exact and checked with the supplier?

 

Regards

While i agree that the customer shouldn't always demand to know the name of the supplier, relaity is they sometimes do. These days it is impossible to withhold this information as customers tend to ask for the BRC certificate or equivalent for the producing factory and this contains details of the factory anyway. Transparency is starting to overtake the old school agent & broker culture of withholding details of their supplier. 

The way to get around this is to have robust contracts in place that disallows your supplier from contacting your customers directly.

 

If you are not willing to send the supplier's specification to the customer, ask the customer to specify the additional information they want outside of what you have already provided and send this as an appendix to your specification.

 

We tend to send our own specification template to our suppliers to complete rather then ask for their specification as transferring this to our template introduces additional layer of admin. In our case the customer will have to specify the additional information they need 



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