Implementing a New MAP Line
This will be my first post, other than an introduction, so if I commit a Food Safety Forum Sin please have mercy! I'll start by saying that I'm the Quality Manager, SQF Practitioner, and PCQI for what most would consider a small business. Our SQF certification is still in it's infancy in it's fifth year, but we did score our first Excellent last month. You could say I am new to Quality as well, and our department is small but growing. I have one tech, my backup practitioner, who has been with the company longer than I but is like, brand-spanking-new to quality even more than myself.
We produce peanuts, tree nuts and confections; all of which are packaged in various sized tins, as well as various sized pouch bags. The tins receive an oxygen scrubber before being seamed and have been through an extensive internal, as well as an independent external university shelf-life study. Aside from the confections, obviously nuts have very low water activity and the shelf-life examination and testing was heavily focused on quality and organoleptic characteristics.
The pouch bags on the other hand receive no o2 scrubbers, the reason being our CEO feels that they reduce the headspace in the bag TOO much, making them look more "vacuum-sealed", and feels they do not stand up as nicely on the shelves in our retail outlets. (Although most of our sales are web, wholesale and fundraising, and private label.) So we've been toying with a nitrogen-flush for that packaging line over the last year, as sales for this form of packaging have increased and we believe they will continue that trajectory. Currently, without any form of MAP at all, they have a shelf-life of Best Before: 90 days (or less, depending on the seasoning/lack-of) before quality characteristics begin to wane. Note: none of our products have an actual Expiration Date.
So, in a very short whirlwind of a week-or-so, while preparing for an Unannounced SQF Audit and throughout it; this happened. When I say "this happened", I mean literally all of a sudden we have a Nitrogen Flush, tanks, a new supplier, and we are doing this. Like, hey by the way we're Nitrogen flushing now so set up some meetings to figure out what we need to do from here.
So this is where I'm at. Starting from scratch. SQF is so vague when it comes to compressed air and gasses. Is it clean? Yes. Okay.
So far, I've added the supplier to our Approved Supplier Program once they submitted the requested docs, I'm working on getting our procedures updated to allow for O2 testing the headspace to collect data for trending, I have 12 pouches of each size to open one a month with the team for reviewing quality traits, and I know this needs to go in the Food Safety Plans... but I feel like I'm missing a lot here. It feels more complicated than this. Has anyone been in my shoes? Am I missing some glaringly obvious no-no? Or does this just feel so intense because all of this should have been vetted before it happened? No claims have been made, or changed, in regards to shelf-life being any shorter. Am I being overdramatic here?
Glenn, can you eloborate? The code states: "Step 15: Changes to Site SQF Requirements The SQF Food Safety Code: Food Manufacturing enables you to change your requirements based on your changing business arrangements. These include changes and additions in product scope, changing your certification body, site relocation, and changes in business ownership."
Since the scope has remained the same, wouldn't the change be audited during PCP review?
ethomas, make sure you've included compressed air testing on a regular schedule into your program and have a deviation plan in place in the event the results come back unacceptable
I think you may be over complicating this.............you're months away from having enough data to validate the process from a shelf life perspective. You need reams and reams of data for that as well as perhaps investing in 3rd party shelf life trials
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We produce peanuts, tree nuts and confections; all of which are packaged in various sized tins, as well as various sized pouch bags. The tins receive an oxygen scrubber before being seamed ..
The pouch bags on the other hand receive no o2 scrubbers, the reason being our CEO feels that they reduce the headspace in the bag TOO much, making them look more "vacuum-sealed", and feels they do not stand up as nicely on the shelves in our retail outlets. (Although most of our sales are web, wholesale and fundraising, and private label.) So we've been toying with a nitrogen-flush for that packaging line over the last year, as sales for this form of packaging have increased and we believe they will continue that trajectory. Currently, without any form of MAP at all, they have a shelf-life of Best Before: 90 days (or less, depending on the seasoning/lack-of) before quality characteristics begin to wane. Note: none of our products have an actual Expiration Date. ...
So this is where I'm at. Starting from scratch. SQF is so vague when it comes to compressed air and gasses. Is it clean? Yes. Okay.
So far, I've added the supplier to our Approved Supplier Program once they submitted the requested docs, I'm working on getting our procedures updated to allow for O2 testing the headspace to collect data for trending, I have 12 pouches of each size to open one a month with the team for reviewing quality traits, and I know this needs to go in the Food Safety Plans... but I feel like I'm missing a lot here. It feels more complicated than this. Has anyone been in my shoes? Am I missing some glaringly obvious no-no? Or does this just feel so intense because all of this should have been vetted before it happened? No claims have been made, or changed, in regards to shelf-life being any shorter. Am I being overdramatic here?
If you're just introducing flush gasses to a packaging format you were already running, but haven't made any changes to your claims or extended the shelf life I don't think you've missed anything big.
It sounds like you have the SQF items covered, at low volume you're probably purchasing the nitrogen rather than generating it, so supplier rather than contract service provider (2.3.2.8) is probably right.
I would be surprised if the O2 absorber had a significant enough impact on headspace to collapse a typical pouch, unless the packet being used is much larger than needed. We typically see reduction even from atmospheric levels down to less than 0.01% after 72h with no easily discernable volume change.