I was in Panama at an Orange Juice company and the QA Manager said, "well it's hard here in Panama considering it's a third world country" when he was talking about sourcing oranges from various small farmers.
Interestingly enough - Panama (by classification) is not a Third World Country.
I had to look it up, because I was curious what it meant - here's the definition (and it is not what I thought is was going to say)...
"The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Communist Bloc."
Ain't that a hoot!
Anyway, in answer to your question - no and yes - I say that becuase on the surface and as Olenazh indicated ISO applies to the entire supply chain, so my answer would be NO.
However - if the recieving company would be willing to assist each producer with upgrading their sanitary conditions, putting systems into place, GMP's,etc the answer could become a YES.
Here's something interesting --
I had a client in North Carolina, USA that made cheese and prior to my visit to their facility I lived in the area and had some of their cheese - it was very good.
While at the facility to do an SQF exploratory review I found that the milk they purchased was borderline at best - it had a high bio-load and thus they added a bunch of steps in pre-processing.
As it turned out they decided to not get SQF certified - but I looked back to eating that cheese and thought gee whiz, wish I had known that before I ate it.
This is one the reasons why I always look in the kitchen at a restaurant before eating.
All the Best,
All Rights Reserved,
Without Prejudice,
Glenn Oster.
Glenn Oster Consulting, LLC -
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