We were recently bought out by a larger company. Currently we have a Quality Assurance Tech for each shift, and a SQF Practitioner for each facility. We produce Shell Eggs at 3 of our facilities and liquid egg at another under FSIS. We are SQF 9.0 Food Safety and Quality. The new company says that we have too many QA's as they do not have a QA, only USDA Inspector on site. My question is, isn't a QA required under the SQF Code for Food Manufacturing. I don't really see how it would work, our QA's perform quality checks as well as food safety QCP's checks during production. The QA duties are interwoven into our SQF Code as to their duties surrounding the requirements of the code. I simply cannot see how a plant can SQF Certified and not have a QA? Each of our facilities have between 65 - 100 employees each. The Practitioner has far too many duties, mostly paperwork to fulfill and it would be almost impossible for them to maintain the food safety and quality requirements set forth by our old company and changing the rules would be a nightmare.
Is this a normal environment for food manufacturing sites not to have a QA?