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Looking for best practice ideas on non-food grade ingredients.

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Tgoss

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Posted 08 March 2019 - 06:23 PM

I was looking to get some best practice ideas with an issue we keep running into here. A little background on our company, we take an acid and a base (GRAS statements apply but neither is "food grade") and react them to make various salts. These salts are used as ingredients in food grade applications, as filter aides for water filtration, and as animal feed binders or ingredients. Quite a few of our product #'s are considered food grade, and we are FDA regulated.

 

We are seeking SQF certification and one of our biggest hurdles is in getting the correct information from our suppliers to meet the following SQF requirement: 

4.4.8 The approved supplier program shall be based on the prior performance of a supplier and the risk level of the raw materials ingredients, packaging materials, and services supplied, and shall contain as a minimum: i. Agreed specifications (refer to 2.3.2); ii. Reference to the rating of the level of risk applied to a raw material ingredients, packaging materials and services and the approved supplier; iii. A summary of the food safety controls implemented by the approved supplier;

 

Try to think of the irony of asking a chemical company to give an FDA statement, continuing letter of guarantee, fill out a HACCP based risk analysis, etc. when what they provide is toxic (I typically say poison but one of my bosses cringes when I do). I have some ideas myself on how to meet the code and it involves a re-write of the approved supplier program, questionnaire, and all associated documents. Or it might be something as simple as a statement as to why certain parts of the supplier program don't apply to these ingredients.

Has anyone tackled something similar or have suggestions of best practices? 

 

 


Edited by Tgoss, 08 March 2019 - 06:29 PM.


Panos

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Posted 08 March 2019 - 07:01 PM

I think your problem here is the fact that neither of them are food grade. Also I know we are playing with words but you are buying chemicals and turning them to an ingredient by mixing them. I would argue that it is you (as in your company) who produces the ingredient that is used in your product. 

 

I am curious also to know what have you decided to do.

Best





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