9 replies to this topic

[Jorge LN]

Good afternoon,

I work for a trading company (IFS broker & BRC agent and broker certified) that buys and sells dairy products without further processing.

We always receive the Certificate of Analysis (CoA) of purchased goods from the manufacturer. On some occasions, according to commercial criteria, we transfer the content of the original CoA to another CoA with letterhead and signature of the broker company (the CoA always identifies the initial manufacturer).

My questions regarding this practice are:
- Is it legal to issue and sign a certificate of analysis by an entity that has not analyzed the product?
- Are there legal requirements on which entity can issue and sign a certificate of analysis?
- Is there a compendium of good practices on this regard?

I would like to implement good practices about the issuance of Certificates of Analysis in my company, but I am not sure if there is regulation on this regard as well as if there are guidelines / good practices about it. 

 

Some people have told me that this is not a rgood practice, but on the other hand, nobody has been able to tell me why it's not considered a good practice.

Any contribution will be welcome.

 

Kind regards,

 

Jorge Lastra.

[Scampi]

I wouldn't do what you're doing-ever, it's essentially fraud as you did not test the product, nor have it sent to a 3rd party lab

 

Simply attach the original CoA--not understanding the rational for the extra steps PLUS it puts you in a legal mess if your customer tests and gets different results 

 

Uh huh, no way

[pHruit]

Welcome to the forum

 

I'm not aware of any specific EU legislation that would directly apply, although obviously if it is being presented in a way that actually misleads as to the real nature of the product then that would fall into more clear areas around food fraud, but it doesn't sound like that is the case here. If your business is signing the CoA on your letterhead then it does potentially become more problematic, although it will depend on the exact wording of what you're signing - if you haven't done the analysis then you'll need to be very careful about how this is presented.

 

It's something I used to see very regularly with traders/brokers in the past - 10+ years ago it was pretty much the only approach they used. It goes back to the days of traders trying to hide/"protect" their sources so that customers couldn't cut them out of the supply chain and go direct to the manufacturer, but with the requirements of BRC in particular, those days are numbered if not already gone, at least in some regions of Europe.

 

In terms of reasons why it's potentially not great practice:

1) The European market is moving towards more and more transparency in food supply chains. If I'm buying from a trader then I want to see information from the actual manufacturing site - if it's their CoA, transferring it onto your own letterhead serves no purpose other than to obfuscate that. Please note I'm certainly not saying that you personally are attempting to hide anything, but rather that this can be the perception from a customer's perspective. In these days of better awareness of food fraud, attempting, or appearing to attempt, to hide anything can easily just look like a big red flag for fraud risk.

Having said that, attitude to this do vary through Europe, with some areas more relaxed about this practice than others. Here in the UK I have customers who'd outright reject deliveries for this, but I also work with a lot of businesses in mainland Europe for whom this wouldn't really cause any concern.

 

2) The results aren't from your company's analysis, and presumably haven't been analytically verified by your business (if you'd tested the batch you could just issue your own CoA), so there is some potential debate as to how sensible/honest this is as an approach - if you've neither done the testing nor verified it, is your business at risk of misleading the customer as to the basis of the analysis? And in any case, what are you or your customers gaining from it being on your letterhead?

 

As you've mentioned that this is done sometimes "according to commercial criteria", it might be worth looking at what those are. I could see two potential reasons for this - one is that it's a hangover from the old-fashioned trader approach of trying to hide the sources (rather undermined by the addition of the processor's name and the BRC requirements), and that it's just not really been reconsidered in light of the way the modern industry works. IMO this would fall into the "not great practice" category. The other potential reason might be that the customer has specifically requested it. I've worked for traders and occasionally would get a request like this, because it means that the they can easily link the CoA / product to us as their direct supplier if there is an issue. This is perhaps more excusable if it's at the explicit request of the customer, although I'd get that documented so it's clear.

 

N.B. I sincerely don't mean for any of this to sound overly critical of you personally - you've raised the question which IMO is a good thing. I've spent many years working both for agents and manufacturers, so have seen a lot of change in this area and have been in your position, so I very much empathise with it!

[Brothbro]

I'm curious why your customers would ask for you to transfer the CoA information onto your own company's letterhead, despite you not actually testing it. A fundamental aspect of the CoA is that it contains contact information for the entity that actually tested it, so questions can be raised if needed.

[SQFconsultant]

Whoever the main broker/owner of your company is - STOP IT.

 

You should simply pass thru the coa as provided and not do what you are doing.

[Jorge LN]

Thank you for your inputs.

 

I understand it might not be a good practice, but please find below further details about this situation, related with one specific customer. 

There is no intention to mislead the customer or perform any food fraud.

 

The main point for this practice is that this specific customer requests to include in the CoA several elements and specific layout (for example, upper limit and lower limit for each of the analyzed parameters). Most times, manufacturers are not willing to collaborate with my organization, so they just provide their standard CoA, but do not want to issue another CoA matching this customer's requirements. We just transfer the quality parameters from manufacturer's CoA to trader's CoA, adding few elements like these limits (according to customer's specs).

 

Therefore:

• Customer is fully aware that my organization is just a trader, not manufacturer.
• Customer can only purchase from approved manufacturers (directly or via traders), so we properly identify the manufacturing site in our CoA.
• Customer already knows that we are not analyzing the product, but conveying analysis results coming from manufcturer.
• There is a complete CoA traceability, as each of our CoAs is linked to a manufacturer's CoA.
• By issuing this CoA, the trader assumes complete responsibility & accountability in case of any customer complaint, but we may fully convey this to manufacturer, as we still have the original manufacturer's CoA signed by manufacturer.

 

Therefore, I would still need clear objective reasons to convince Management for not following this practice:

• Is there any clause at BRC Agents & Brokers or IFS Broker standards against this practice?
• It does not seem to be illegal, or misleading.

 

Your inputs will be appreciated.

 

Kind regards!

[Scampi]

So how do you know the information your customer is asking for re: upper lower limits? if the manufacturer only sends you a CoA?

 

Provide actual examples with the company names blacked out.....it still sounds suspect to me

[pHruit]

Therefore:

• Customer is fully aware that my organization is just a trader, not manufacturer.
• Customer can only purchase from approved manufacturers (directly or via traders), so we properly identify the manufacturing site in our CoA.
• Customer already knows that we are not analyzing the product, but conveying analysis results coming from manufcturer.
• There is a complete CoA traceability, as each of our CoAs is linked to a manufacturer's CoA.
• By issuing this CoA, the trader assumes complete responsibility & accountability in case of any customer complaint, but we may fully convey this to manufacturer, as we still have the original manufacturer's CoA signed by manufacturer.

 

 

OK, so I'm assuming that your customer is one of those sites that requires the specification min/max tolerances to be included on the CoA, and your supplier doesn't really want to rejig their CoA format or do one-off specials for one site that isn't even their direct customer.

This is perhaps one of the few cases where this approach is potentially acceptable, as long as all parties understand what the data represents, who is providing it, and how.

Your customer is perhaps unlikely to want to vary their intake requirements for this one case, so it doesn't really leave you many other options.

If you've already got written confirmation from the customer that they understand what you're doing and why, and that they want you to do this, then save a copy of that in their file, otherwise it's possibly worth requesting it and taking the opportunity to (re-)clarify exactly what you're doing.

 

If you've got to issue this certificate format effectively as a prerequisite for this supply then I'd double-check you're comfortable with the wording and the clarity of what is being presented - personally I'd include a statement on the certificate to the effect of:

This product is manufactured by (manufacturer name) and the results contained herein are provided by the manufacturer. This data has not been analytically verified by (your company name). This data has been transcribed into this document format at the request of (customer name).

This way it is then clear that it's definitely not "your" certificate of analysis, so much as it is a presentation of the original data in a format to satisfy the customer's specific needs.

 

If you really wanted to ensure you're covered on all fronts, you could send this certificate *and* a copy of the original - your customer will choose to ignore the original, but if there are ever any queries you can then easily show you've been fully transparent in everything. It's the sort of thing that could run for a few years and then generates some headaches when staff at the customer change, and the original requirement/basis gets forgotten

As I mentioned previously, I don't believe there is anything explicit in the BRC standard or in EU regulation that would prohibit this, and in your case you're definitely not trying to obfuscate anything from the customer such that it might start moving into food fraud territory.
 

[Jorge LN]

I'm curious why your customers would ask for you to transfer the CoA information onto your own company's letterhead, despite you not actually testing it. A fundamental aspect of the CoA is that it contains contact information for the entity that actually tested it, so questions can be raised if needed.

 

Good morning,

 

 

My customer does not request to transfer the CoA information to our own company's letter head. 

 

My customer just request that CoAs fulfil their requirements, for example, mentioning their specs number, Lower Standard Limit (LSL) &  Upper Standard Limit (USL). As some of our suppliers do not issue CoAs with such requirements, we issue adapted CoAs with this information. 

 

As a valid point, we should state in our CoA that sample was tested by manufacturer.

[Jorge LN]

So how do you know the information your customer is asking for re: upper lower limits? if the manufacturer only sends you a CoA?

 

Provide actual examples with the company names blacked out.....it still sounds suspect to me

 

The customer has a  comprehensive process for approving manufacturers, but prefers a trader to deal with all approved manufacturers.

 

Approval process of manufacturers includes physical audit of the manufacturing site and customer's specs signed.

 

Of course, the customer shares its own specs with us upfront.