Requirements when Co-Manufacturing for a customer?

Hello everyone,

We are FSSC 22000 certified facility and have a customer that would like us to manufacture their salad dressing. They are new in this, and currently making small batches by using whatever ingredients they can get at grocery stores. Little they know about traceability, supplier approval, food fraud...etc. but they would like to grow.

My question is: as a food safety certified facility, are we required to have all the same information on suppliers and ingredients for their product as we would for our own product? Because, we are struggling on getting product specs, allergen specs and any other information on some of the ingredients they currently use and want to continue using because they like the cost of that ingredient. Is our responsibility on this just as same as on our own products?

Thank you

Hi Isi

I would simply keep them out of scope for now. You can still make it for them, but do it on dedicated days so you cannot mix it with your FSSC approved products.

If you include these products, then yes, your supplier approvals need to include their ingredient (but if it's grocery store stuff, you should be able to find some generic specs that will suffice) Make sure though, the allergen in the copack product is included in your hazard analysis so it doesn't become an issue in your facility

We buy sugar at the big C because the small amount we use is actually cheaper there, however, redpath provided us with the food safety info we needed for that product

^{Hi Scampi,}

^{Thank you for the quick reply!}

^{We would make this product on dedicated days, but I am still not sure how we can keep it out of our scope. I'm sure an auditor would have questions about this product during an audit.}

^{I am struggling finding GFSI regulations  on stuff like this, but my assumption is that everything we co-manufacture must be treated same as our product.}

^{So, lets say one of their ingredient suppliers is not food safety certified and does not provide us with any paperwork, such as product specs or three column allergen checklist (this is the very first info I ask for from suppliers). But the customer is insisting on using this supplier and their product... Would we get a non-conformance for this during our FSSC audit? Or can we put in a contract that this is their responsibility? ;)}

I can't answer to FSSC specifically. What I would do though is call you CB and ask them. You're company is paying a boat load of money for the service. They will send it up to the technical manager for a written in stone answer. 

You're certification would then "ignore" those products during the audit process (as long as segregation was completely maintained)

You are absolutely right about that! For the amount of money they charge, they certainly should give us this information

Thank you

FYI i just switched CB's for this year and saved 33%......yeah that was shocking and our original CB didn't even counter when I said we were walking, so it pays to shop around

Dear Isi,

Indeed, as you are a certified company, this is the consequence.

On the other hand, that's a huge advantage for your customer. When they let manufacture the salad dressing by you, they can focus on their growing market. And they present a dressing which complies to the FSSC 22000 standard, which opens doors to new markets.

It's up to your product development department to find equivalent raw materials. This can be the ones that are present in final packaging in the grocery stores, but with a BtB label (Business to Business). Or simply equivalent variants. And after that, you will have the upscaling process.

Kind regards,

Gerard Heerkens