Bulk Grains Animal Feed - Traceability Help

Good afternoon everyone,

I have searched the site for a while and it seems that there is not a very good solution for us as of yet but I thought I would at least throw it out there for some help.

We are a processor of Barley and Oats for animal feed. We get the grain in by truck, rail car, and cargo ship load. These are all brought in and stored in the facility in a flat storage manner (no bins or silos). The question comes down to traceability and how we do our lot coding. Currently the setup is each ship load is given a lot but they only do one full test (for pathogens) each year and the rest of the time we only test for vomitoxin. So my question is, are there any recommendations (with our current setup) for how to handle what to do in case of a recall situation? 

Right now we could see when the grain comes in but since it all just gets mixed together as of now it is impossible to segregate that lot. 

Anything I may need to clear up please let me know. I am brand new in the position and so it would be great to get some help, feedback, or links. 

Thanks in advance! 

In your current set up, you would have no choice but to recall everything since your last full clean out. May i ask why it isn't run individually by lot??

How does your current lot coding system work? Is there a time stamp of some sort in case there is an issue mechanically at your facility?

We have individual daily lot codes when we bag our material, and obviously each truck is its own traceable shipment, but to segregate the grain where it came from is impossible. One side of the flat storage is Oats and the other is Barley and when we get trucks or rail cars or ships they just go on top of the pile. So how do we track and segregate if there was a non-processing related issue like a mycotoxin problem (we test for Vomitoxin). 

Where I came from we did tomato products and it was similar in form during tomato season where we had 20+ trucks dump their tomatoes and we would run them in and can them. We couldnt trace which exact field it came from but we could say it would be one of 20 fields for the day. Here because it just combines together (we zero out every once in a while) it would be impossible to even begin to narrow it down. Again if there were a mechanical problem when we were bagging we could just hold the lot from that day, but I am just concerned about the lots where the concern would be from a larger scale. 

I hope that helps explain it a little? 

Yes it does.........i think the only thing to do at this point is zero out your system (i am assuming this is the slowest time of year for you). Then calculate how many kgs/tons arrive per day v.s. how much is produced  (you could figure out your mixing speeds but that will take considerable effort and some expense) daily.  Then you need to clean out again to weigh what is leftover......then theoretically you could run a daily mass balance sheet based on these figures to ESTIMATE how long any given lot is in your system

you would have to though still recall at least 1 additional day on either side (as possibly 2 or 3 after) to ensure you've recalled ALL possible contaminated grain

Again, this will be purely math based and estimates only, but it really is information you should have..........this would fall under a VALIDATION process.........assuming nothing changes in your process you would never have to empty and weigh again. For food processors (human food) this process would have to be repeated a few times to account for statistical anomalies and worse case scenario (like a surge in orders, or adding another shift etc.)

Does that help?

I don't quite get it? Also we run 3 shifts 24 hours per day 5 days per week. 

I dont know how practical that is unless we only had to do that one time to get an idea of how many tons we go thru in a day? Is that the idea? But still the inbound gets all mixed together theoretically so like you said I couldnt say for certain how much of truck 1 is in the pile at the end of the day. 

Thanks for working with me. Sometimes things take a bit to sink in to my thick skull! :) 

Ok, no worries. Yes, the idea is to have a close idea of how much carry over from one day to the next (what is not packed) and total tonnage run through a day, no you will never be able to recall only the one truck that was contaminated, you will always have to recall enough to be sure you've got it all, and in your case, all you have is math based on REAL numbers.  Maybe you don't have to do a clean out, but it would be nice to have empty to start fresh!

If I were you, and starting from scratch is not an option, I would look at real historical data from weigh tickets and production volumes and work backwards to tell you how much you'd have to recall. The maintenance folks should be able to tell you what your outputs should be based on the equipment. Oh, can you get a silo weight or volume first thing on a Monday morning.....then you don't have to clean out....you're starting # would be that instead of zero

make sense?