Information to include for section 4.9-management of surplus products

Hi Everyone,

What kind of information would need to be included under section 4.9-management of surplus products? Can someone please provide advise. 

I'm working for a poultry supplier. 

Thank you.

The particular requirements are going to depend on the specifics of your business.

The intent is reasonably well characterised in the Interpretation Guide (very much worth obtaining if you don't have a copy) - broadly you need to ensure that:

1) You're protecting the brand owner for any branded products you handle, and only disposing/selling in accordance with their requirements;

2) Only re-selling / donating product that is safe and legal.

If you handle branded consumer products, I'd suggest that you may want a procedure defining how to handle this - effectively, that you will contact the owner of each brand (if it isn't your own brand) to obtain written instruction as to how surplus product with their labelling should be handled, and consequently detailing the steps you take to ensure this is done.

For the safe/legal bit, you'd need to determine what is required in your particular situation. If you handle product in multiple countries then it may be a check to verify that product previously destined for e.g. the US also complies with the requirements for Canada, if that's where you now intend to resell it. Other obvious potential considerations would be shelf life, storage etc - if you have surplus product because a customer turned away a truck with a broken chiller unit then obviously that should not be sold on elsewhere. Once you've decided how this applies to you, I'd incorporate this into the same procedure as above, or a new procedure if required, as whilst you may meet the requirements of the standard in the sense that you know how you're achieving compliance with 4.9.1/.2/.3, you'll want to be able to show that it's very clearly defined.

If there isn't really a sensible route to re-sell, and your plan is simply to document that you'll dispose of anything that would fall within the scope of this clause, then I'd also personally want to make sure I had a suitable disposal company on my approved supplier list, along with a copy of their waste handling license (or equivalent, if applicable), as experience suggests its the sort of thing that an auditor might ask for ;)