Validating Label Claims
Hi all,
I am an QA/Haccp assistant in our food company, recently we produced an All beef pepperoni RTE smoked meat.
I wonder if the requirements on BRC Food Safety Issue 8 clause 5.2.3 applies on our claim " ALL BEEF Label".
Anybody have an idea if we need to validate this one, if it does, any particular test that we can do?
Thanks for your help.
Bertchel Bade
HI there
can you post the clause please
Question - 5.2.3 Where a product is designed to enable a claim to be made to satisfy a consumer group (e.g. a nutritional claim, reduced sugar), the company shall ensure that the product formulation and production process is fully validated to meet the stated claim
Interpretation – Nutritional claim
Where a particular claim about the formulation of a product has been made, procedures must be in place to validate that the claim is correct and to ensure that, when handling the product during processing, contamination or variation which adversely affects the claim cannot occur. A procedure might, for example, include completing a nutritional analysis which can be checked against the proposed product label and specification.
Good practice is to ensure that a program of ongoing verification is in place to demonstrate that claims are consistently being met. Claims such as "free from" and “allergen free’ need particular care to ensure that cross-contamination does not occur during processing and are therefore covered separately in clause 5.3.7.
Where there are particular legislative requirements relating to claims such as low fat, sugar or salt, the requirements must be understood and must be met.
As long as you comply with the CFIA labelling rules, that should suffice the requirement
In your particular case, the recipe/batch record that you use to produce the all beef product should suffice
Yours is not really a claim under that clause as this is not a nutritional claim