SOP Allergen Substances for 3rd Party Warehouse
Hi,
We are now preparing sop allergen substances for warehouse. We are a 3rd party warehouse which we only store product. My question is, is there any other ways that we can identify the allergen substances in the product instead of requesting ingredients list from customer or COA?
Regards,
Akma
Hi Akma, welcome to the forum. You could try the following:
Check the product label ingredient list and compare to your country official list of allergens (e.g. milk, egg, nuts, peanuts, etc.) However, if the ingredients don't state their sub-ingredients you cannot be sure (e.g. chocolate may contain soy and milk, coconut strings may contain sulfites, cookies may contain wheat, etc.). So, your further action might be to request Allergen statement from the supplier. That's a normal practice - because you, as a distributor, are responsible for not only distributing products to your customers but supplying them with product information (e.g. specifications, GFSI, Letters of Guarantee, COO, etc.)
BTW, Certificate of Analysis would not help you as it doesn't usually state product ingredients, only chemical/micro/physical profile.
Thank you for responding and your suggestion. I will try to propose this recommendation to my company.
I have another questions. It is about the method of cleaning the pallet, forklift or the room that stored product which contain allergen substance. This warehouse is a cold room storage, so what is the method that can we use for cleaning procedure?
Regular cleaning procedure: sweeping the floors, wiping the forklift, making sure your pallets are sound and relatively clean (it's hard to get sterile clean skids:)), things like that. I don't think, wet cleaning is necessary, only if you have leaks. Very important - observations and inspections to make sure none of your products are leaking or spilled as that would be cross-contamination hazard. Pest control - critical as pest can cause tremendous problems. Products, containing different allergens, cannot be stored on top of each other, only beside each other.
Alright, i understand. :smile: Thank you for your suggestion and explanation regarding this topic. It's really help me.