Supplier Letter of Guarantees

Hello Everyone, 

How often do you request updated letters of guarantee from your approved suppliers of raw materials & food contact packaging? 

I do not see any reference to that in the code.

Thank you!

Hi there

Being on the receiving end of things, I get the requests every year from the same people who are going to have an audit. I am creating a supplier program as well and will be doing the requests on a yearly basis.

Hope this helps!

Hi there

 

Being on the receiving end of things, I get the requests every year from the same people who are going to have an audit. I am creating a supplier program as well and will be doing the requests on a yearly basis.

 

Hope this helps!

Thanks @LWorden

What about specification sheets? We have some dated 2011 or older.. What is the accepted norm? 

For our clients all update everything once a year. And that includes spec sheets.

Same here - yearly for everything. 

Is this a requirement of GFSI certifiation bodies such as SQF, BRS, ISO, AIB? I believe that was the last comment of the original post questions.

SQF does not - it requires that you establish your own frequency.  Yearly tends to be industry standard, any longer than that would probably need to be justified within the program. 

The standards have been moving away from yearly. For example, the BRC requires Specifications to be reviewed every three years. But business documents such as Certificates of Liability Insurance and Letters of Guarantee are often requested yearly. 

Yearly, I have super difficult suppliers who I have been asking for 2 months now for the documents. 

This really seems like one that should be triggered more by a process, ingredient, facility or equipment change than a time frame, even 3 years. If I make the same product with the same ingredients, machines, cleaning, personnel etc, and testing and analysis don't show a change, why do I need to re-guarantee the product's safety? If nothing changes it truly doesn't change.

This really seems like one that should be triggered more by a process, ingredient, facility or equipment change than a time frame, even 3 years. If I make the same product with the same ingredients, machines, cleaning, personnel etc, and testing and analysis don't show a change, why do I need to re-guarantee the product's safety? If nothing changes it truly doesn't change.

IME with smaller suppliers sometimes minor product changes get missed or personnel changes occur which warrant an update in contact information.  Yes, theoretically your supplier should notify you of these changes, but it's a good double-check on your part to request updates at least annually. 

We require supplier documents every 3 years, however, based on our risk and vulnerability assessment, some suppliers/ ingredients who scored medium to high rating, needs to update letter of guarantee every year.

And when a supplier go through our supplier approval program, it is part of the agreement that any changes in the products supplied to us, the supplier have to notify us (e.g. formulation change, declaration change etc.) for our approval.

Annually, or if there are any changes made with the ingredient/item.

We request an updated letter of guarantee annually from our supplier. As for product specifications, it is written in our supplier approval program that we will review them every 3 years and request a new one if there has been updates made. A lot of times though when I have requested new ones from supplier, they may not have made any updates in 5+ years. 

Some suppliers I require them to send me a new specification if there is a change to it. Since this is being used as part of our product we need to know if it will affect the end product. Others I request an updated spec every other year. I also do the same for letter of guarantee.

Letters of Product Guarantee are an American Tradition/Dream

Does anyone have a template for a Continuing Letter of Guarantee for Nut industry.  We sell pieces that are packaged at a packing plant 

I have documentation requested annually from all of the customers that are either already audited by a third party or by those that are working towards it.  When it comes to general letters we don't have them because they are usually specific to the product that is requested and/or sold.

Cheers!