Approving farm supplier for dried ginseng root
I'm being asked to approve a supplier for dried ginseng root. It is a farm in Ontario, Canada that grows and dries the root and packages it for bulk sale. They do no have food party inspection and the supplier questionnaire they filled out is sparse to say the least. We know they have nice product, but they don't have a HACCP plan, or allergen control program, or glass break or anything......they are a small family run company I believe so just don't have all the procedures in place.
Can we receive and inspect and test the product ourselves? I was thinking of visiting the farm and doing a supplier inspection?
If doing a supplier inspection, does anyone have a good checklist to use for something like this?
The USA has been working on this the past few years. Assessments for farms. This may help.
Most farms will not have much. I once showed a water down version of the USDA GAP audit to some farmers. They all looked at me like I was an alien.
Fortunately, SQF is pretty vague on what is REQUIRED for an approved supplier program. Unfortunately, they do mention or give any guidance for farms or raw agricultural commodities at all.
The onus will be on you to conduct a risk assesment of the ingredient and make sure that you are / are capable of controlling / monitoring all of the potential hazards. Thats probably the most important part.
I would add a separate category to your supplier approval program - raw agricultural commodities. Try and meet as much of the requirements in 2.3.4.2. I would also follow 2.3.4.4 (and 2.3.4.3) as you are using a supplier that does fall into the the normal protocols. While they are not an "emergency supplier" they dont comply with typical approval processes. Have a decent incoming inspection and / or testing program in place.
You can go down the audit path as well. But be prepared, it MAY be dissapointing. In either case, you will most likely have to control the hazards anyway.
I wouldn't waste your time doing a site visit-you will not get what you think you'll get
Some farms are CanadaGap certified, but given that ginseng is not wildly grown in north america, you're not the one with the power in this scenario
What you would be purchasing is actually a raw agricultural commodity, so bear that in mind-it will have all the same hazards as bulk wheat or soy beans
My experience is similar to kingstrudler1's, most small farms will not have much info to provide. It's good to learn about their operation to identify the risks associated with the product so that you can control them on your end. You won't be able to get them to control for any hazards on their end, it's a raw ag commodity.
So yes, you can likely use this supplier if there aren't any massive red flags. But this won't be a situation where you simply inspect/test the incoming material to ensure it's ready to go. There will likely be extra processing steps you'll need to take routinely for every inbound shipment to control known hazards (washing, foreign material control, etc.)
Reach out to these folks if buying from Ontario
https://ginsengontario.com/wholesale/
From BC
You'll stand a better chance of assistance with your querry