What Should Be Included in a Food Recall Plan for Customers?

Hi all,

A customer of ours is requesting some documents and one of them is a "Recall Plan". I do not think I have one created already. What information should be shared?

Any examples/templates? Thanks! 

Ahhh, under BRC you would have this, you sure you don't have one along with traceability?

We have a "Recall Management Team" document with names, titles, contact info, like an "Emergency Contact List".

We have a traceability template, SOP, recall policy for internal use. 

Ahhh, I think you may find that your recall policy can also be your recall plan.  

Just a thought. 

Can it be in a REC form? Purpose, content, References. Is this the right doc to share? 

When  a customer requests an actual document in my FSQ-Manual I do not share the actual document.  I create a customer specific one that can be shared.  Specifics on the plan are not provided more that I supply a document that breaks out the headline components of the internal recall plan that does not contain any proprietary information.  Its basically an outline that provides assurance to the customer.     

@nwilson, same.  We have a handful of boilerplate letters to send to customers that remind them we are an SQF business, and it offers a brief description of our plans and programs without actually offering them full details or copies of the records.  It generally satisfies their ask (just like when I receive boilerplate letters from my suppliers when I ask for their EMP and Supplier Approval programs).  We also leave a statement at the bottom that our customers are welcome to review documents on-site during agreed upon and pre-scheduled visits.

For OP, I'd respond with something signed on company letterhead that says something to the effect of:

Recall Program:

As a GFSI Certified facility, xxx company has a recall plan which can be activated by any member of our recall team in the event of a notification of food safety issue by our customers or a regulatory body, as well as in the event a discovery is made by our FSQA team.  The plan addresses mandatory traceback of affected commodities within xxx hours as well as notification to all affected customers and requires root cause investigation and corrective action into the cause and source of the recall.

Something to that effect.  Do the same for all other programs your customers routinely ask for, have someone with signatory authority sign and date it, and forward it to all the customers who ask just so everyone has the CYA that regulatory and GFSI requires.  Releasing an internal document should only be done as a last resort and should have (at minimum) some low-level executive approval.

Thank you, jfrey. Your responses are always thorough. 

I agree with Jfrey. We have summary docs that we send to our customers, reserving our full policies for onsite audits. These summary docs have the basic information without providing the full policy.