11 replies to this topic

[scottWCF]

I recently started at a company that functions in 3 primary categories of food product. Fresh whole produce, fresh cut and packaged produce (food service and direct to consumer), and meat processing & packing. They are also getting into greenhouse production of growing produce but that may be another story for another day...

It is a small family owned company, <10 employees, and I've been tasked with sorting out an incomplete discarded HACCP plan that was implemented by someone who no longer works with the company. The owner's hopes are to implement what we need to acquire a GFSI certification (Primus/SQF).

They were operating under the assumption that we could just put together a new HACCP plan quickly, have 90 days of records of temp readings/cleaning/etc and that would be enough to have a Primus/SQF auditor come through for the certifications. As I read more there seems to be so much that is unknown and misunderstood.

 

My end all questions are...

- Where do I start? HACCP Certification?
- What course is best for our products (meat/whole produce/cut produce)
- PrimusGFS or SQF? We only operate within our state. Concerned with what has a potentially less stringent requirements and cost.

 

I'm eager to jump into this world but I am completely green. Let me know if there is ANY advice you can help with! Thank you so much.

Edited by Charles.C, 08 February 2020 - 04:28 AM.
HAACP > HACCP

[QAGB]

Bless you. It sounds like you have a lot on your hands. To answer your questions:

 

1 & 2. You would want to definitely get HACCP certified. Take a course via a reputable source (mine is through NEHA), so you can learn more about HACCP and ultimately be certified. 

 

3. I thought PrimusGFS was just for produce. I don't think you can get Primus for your meat processing operation. Some of the others here might be able to answer that better than I can. I hear Primus isn't as extreme as SQF. If you end up going SQF, you do face some challenges being a small company with such varied product categories with less than 10 employees (and no functioning HACCP plan currently). I would suggest starting out with a GMP audit or similar, and working your way towards SQF (or Primus if it actually does apply to your facility).

[Hank Major]

I recommend the FSPCA (Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance) Preventive Controls for Human Food training course in the US. It's run by the Illinois Institute of Technology and the FDA.

 

https://fspca.force....?language=en_US

[pHruit]

Primus won't cover your meat-related activies, as QAGB indicates.

A relatively easy way to assess GFSI-benchmarked options is to use this to see which schemes are covered in your categories: https://mygfsi.com/h...nt/recognition/

I've done the ground-up certification thing and it can be a challenge - certainly 90 days start to finish seems very optimistic!
I agree that you absolutely want to get your HACCP training done as this is core to any of the certification schemes.

 

What sort of budget is available to help you get this done?

It sounds like you might benefit from the assistance of a good consultant.

IFSQN also has implementation packages for several of the GFSI-benchmarked schemes (e.g. for SQF here: https://www.ifsqn.co...ategory/12-sqf/) that would give you the backbone of a system to develop into your own one for your site, which in combination with some good HACCP training (and possibly a few other bits depending on your personal experience) might be sufficient, but to be honest I'd expect this to depend on how much time you've realistically got to properly get into this, do a lot of learning etc and then allow sufficient time to build up records in your system once it is fully operational.

Some consultancies and certification bodies also offer gap analysis / "mock" audits to help you find areas that need working on before you do the real thing - this might be a useful step once you've got your systems set up to a level with which you're comfortable and you're thinking about booking that first certification audit.

 

(This forum is also a particularly good place to find help on a lot of topics!)

[The Food Scientist]

Ahhh like QAGB said: Bless you! 

 

Agreeing with everyone you need your HACCP training (certified) first. You also need a PCQI at your place for FSMA requirements (After your HACCP). Also make sure you get all the involved people HACCP trained as well (they can be basically trained not really certified).  Preparing a HACCP plan is not really that difficult. you just need the knowledge and the of-course, the training!

 

What type of scheme depends on what your customers require? SQF will certainly cover your meat processing part as mentioned. If SQF, make sure to get your SQF training as well. (Yeah I know lots and lots of training).

 

After that you can slowly build your way up to a certification and get a 3rd party to do you a GAP analysis. Or you can get help with a consultant.

 

Hang in there! You'll be fine :)

Edited by The Food Scientist, 07 February 2020 - 09:11 PM.

[SQFconsultant]

I recently started at a company that functions in 3 primary categories of food product. Fresh whole produce, fresh cut and packaged produce (food service and direct to consumer), and meat processing & packing. They are also getting into greenhouse production of growing produce but that may be another story for another day...

 

>>First of all ScottWCF, welcome!  Next, a mix like that sounds like a bit of fun.  

It is a small family owned company, <10 employees, and I've been tasked with sorting out an incomplete discarded HAACP plan that was implemented by someone who no longer works with the company. The owner's hopes are to implement what we need to acquire a GFSI certification (Primus/SQF).

 

The mix lends itself to SQF and not Primus if you are going the GFSI route.

They were operating under the assumption that we could just put together a new HAACP plan quickly, have 90 days of records of temp readings/cleaning/etc and that would be enough to have a Primus/SQF auditor come through for the certifications. As I read more there seems to be so much that is unknown and misunderstood.

 

No, sorry, while that is a base need (HACCP plan) for SQF there's a lot more to documentation requirements, capital improvements, training, etc and at base an Auditor will want to see at minimum a 3 month paper trail, comfy at 6 or more however.

 

My suggestion is that you have a open chat with an SQF Consultant, review the www.SQFI.com website, download the manufacturing code, etc. and conduct a full review. Getting prepared for SQF certification is a major undertaking, we know because we handle development and implementation of SQF as our main business.

 

 

My end all questions are...

- Where do I start? HAACP Certification?
- What course is best for our products (meat/whole produce/cut produce)
- PrimusGFS or SQF? We only operate within our state. Concerned with what has a potentially less stringent requirements and cost.

 

 

I'm eager to jump into this world but I am completely green. Let me know if there is ANY advice you can help with! Thank you so much.

 

 

>  There is NO less stringent - there are some nuisances between the certification schemes, but as to "stringent" they all are. And to costs, the fees, etc, audits, registration fees, etc are all relative. Cost has a lot to do with what needs to be done internally (capital needs, improvements, repairs, replacements, etc.), if you use internal labor to develop the SQF system, you are normally looking around 6-8 months at per hour or salary or if you contract with a consultant to do the bulk of the work needed and help with implementation.

 

>First place I'd start is having an SQF Gap analysis done by an SQF Consultant either on-site or remotely. That person can also go into detail on next steps in the process as well, answer any questions that you have, etc.

[Charles.C]

Hi scottWCF,

 

You omitted to mention your/yr employees'  technical background.

 

IMO this is likely to be critical for yr whole project. If limited/not appropriate, you almost certainly need an immediate qualified recruit or a Consultant, or both.

[scottWCF]

I want to thank everyone for the detailed and informative replies.

Definitely seeing the trend that a certification is going to be the very first step necessary. We are heavily considering the SQF certification body. Primus isn't my first choice on the front but I think for our area in Texas, more companies are familiar with it for whatever reason.

Need to dig further into finding an initial consultant come out and let us know what we need to be looking at as a starting point.

[TimG]

Hey Scott, one thing to be careful of is pursuing a GFSI (or any) certification just to put it on the wall.

I assume someone has determined the benefit of getting a GFSI? For example, what is the cost of failure? Will you lose customers, perhaps lose potential business? 

I only mention this because I was tossed into a similar situation a little over a year ago, building a from the ground up SQF program and implementing it. When there were repeat issues with assigning appropriate resources, we had to step back and rethink things. 

Just go into this knowing that it can't be Scotts SQF program, there has to be complete buy-in by all employees all the way up to the owner.

Sorry, I vented a bit there...

My suggestion in your case:

1. Get your HACCP training
2. Apply what you've learned and re-write or re-verify the current HACCP
   1. Pay attention to how the HACCP team works, are there weak members not contributing? Address these issues before working on GFSI
3. Determine which GFSI scheme you will be pursuing
4. Get trained in this scheme (for example, SQF practitioner + test if going SQF)
5. Either find consultation (there are good people on this site that do it for a living) or find a "template" program that you can use as a base
6. Implement the program (this will probably be the biggest challenge)

Sorry, If I had more time I would have written a shorter reply

[Njaquino]

I totally understand where you are because that was me 2 years ago. Green and the company wanted for me to pursue SQF not having anything. Take a deep breathe and you will get through it. Getting it done in 6 months is very optimistic considering you need to have documentation for at least 6 months.  I would push for a good consultant to help or a team.

 

I took the route of starting out with a 3rd party GMP audit then SQF. The transition took me a little over a year and a half. I would also explain to the company that having an SQF system  I can only speak from the SQF side because that is my experience.

[charbear]

I strongly recommend Kestrel Management as a consulting firm. Our company had Roberto Bellavia as our consultant through there (Melody Ge was the lead consult but has since moved on). We couldn't have done it without them. We were previously an AIB certified company with no HACCP etc. They guided us through everything right up to helping us through our initial SQF certification audit and beyond.

[Hoosiersmoker]

One thing you might consider: We actually scheduled an SQF audit knowing we would not pass it the first time and used the results as our "Gap Analysis", correcting all non-conformance, then scheduling a new audit which we passed. At the time the cost was nearly the same as hiring a consultant. It also gave us practical audit experience in the process. You will need to have a desk audit prior to the facility audit, being your first time. As overwhelming as it may seem, once laid out the process is pretty straight forward. Once over that initial hump of implementation it gets much easier in the sustaining phase. You got this Scott!