HACCP Flow charts and 'confidentiality'
Hi all,
We are brand owners and are currently working towards BRC Storage & Distribution standard. We outsource all of our manufacturing and packaging to external parties.
One of our packaging suppliers is refusing to provide us with information regarding their HACCP flow and risk assessment. They say that this is available during audit.
I haven't come across this before - is this normal? Do we have a leg to stand on in our request, or are companies within their right to refuse this information?
Thanks.
dani2511
It is absolutely their right to refuse, just as it's yours to insist if they want your business
Let's assume they make laminated heat seal film (as an example) and they have come up (on their own) a better way to laminate the layers.....the flow diagram may contain proprietary information about the mechanism they use in this process
If you have not done so, schedule an appointment for a tour, and request any audit reports that they have including allergen information etc.
Then perform your own risk assessment, how risky is the packaging, how long have they been in business, etc etc etc
HACCP plans et all are incredibly costly to develop and maintain and do contain enough information to copy a process, or at least give you a good head start.
We package private label for a large company, they have requested all sorts of information, but never requested a copy of the plan, nor would I provide it.
Hi Dani,
Please, dive into the BRC norm and have a look if you really need to have this risk assessment.
A good way to inventarise if the identified supplier risks are covered, is by means of a questionnaire. In case that you want to verify the information given by your supplier, you can carry out an audit and look into their risk assessment.
Kind regards,
Gerard Heerkens
Hi,
we ask and we are often asked for flow charts, HACCP docs.
We do not want and give confidential informations and often it is not necessary to have process details. We provide special "external" versions which do not give process details e.g. temperatures, time etc. And we have a combination of questionaire and requested documents on risk (and of course we accept "external versions". Details we will see in audits.
Rgds
moskito
The sales cycle when there a company simply requests a flow chart. If they can view it in an audit, why can’t they have a copy of a flow chart, sure don’t share the whole HACCP plan. But I can attest there’s nothing proprietary about our HACCP plan or flow charts (I know I created them) but still our QA fights with me to release these documents. I’d like your professional opinions on the whole proprietary nature, if there isn’t anything proprietary, is there really any reason a quality department shouldn’t release these docs?
Thanks,
Spencer
We ask for copies of food safety programs. Sometimes they send us HACCP flow charts and other internal docs, other times they send us docs that state they have a HACCP program, EMP, Allergen Program, all the basics in a summarized letter.
Either is acceptable for our purposes. And we ourselves do not send copies of the flow charts or detailed program documents. We also created a summary of our PRP's and controls and invite customers to review on-site if needed.
Just want to rehash this.What advantage is there in having a supplier's flow chart? If they are GFSI certified, they clearly undergo rigorous audits, including a detailed examination of the HACCP plan. So, in my opinion, a GFSI certification should suffice.
In one place I worked there was a "simplified flow" which was given externally. Personally I didn't think it was all that important but it was a business decision. If it unnerves you and the company is insistent upon using them, audit. Their own blooming fault if they could have avoided an audit but didn't due to being all secretive.
Just want to rehash this.What advantage is there in having a supplier's flow chart? If they are GFSI certified, they clearly undergo rigorous audits, including a detailed examination of the HACCP plan. So, in my opinion, a GFSI certification should suffice.
I think it's fair to say I am probably not the only person who has come across things a GFSI auditor has missed but agree I'd probably accept the audit result for a packaging supplier. We used to ask for the report as well to understand the kind of risks identified.
Just want to rehash this.What advantage is there in having a supplier's flow chart? If they are GFSI certified, they clearly undergo rigorous audits, including a detailed examination of the HACCP plan. So, in my opinion, a GFSI certification should suffice.
I used to really agree with this: we're all GFSI certified, it should be good enough for supplier approval on its own! But it's kind of like that old joke: "Q: What do you call the guy who finished dead last in his class at med school? A: Doctor." I'm saying that just because a company is GFSI certified doesn't guarantee they've got an excellent program that can't affect your program.
Take the recent cojita cheese recall here in the states. Lots of companies here got caught up in it, having used the affected cheeses in their own recipes (mine included). Could something as simple as a flow chart on file have prevent it? Not in that example, but it justifies in my mind why at my company we ask our suppliers for sanitation programs, allergen handling policies (and whether products we buy are made on shared lines with allergens), so on and so forth.
it justifies in my mind why at my company we ask our suppliers for sanitation programs, allergen handling policies (and whether products we buy are made on shared lines with allergens), so on and so forth.
I kinda agree with you. I'm not sure it's what you're asking for per se which is important but what it does give you a little insight into is the culture.... Respond quickly, all information at hand? Confidence. Don't respond or respond slowly, quibbling, obvious errors on the documents? Less confidence.
Just want to rehash this.What advantage is there in having a supplier's flow chart? If they are GFSI certified, they clearly undergo rigorous audits, including a detailed examination of the HACCP plan. So, in my opinion, a GFSI certification should suffice.
Not much point in keeping a copy of someone else's flow chart, but we've had requests, and like GMO mentioned I just provide a simplified or dumbed down version that would be generic enough to apply to any similar product.
Nine times out of ten they're just filling checkboxes and don't actually care what's in it when that kind of request is made.