Leveraging Food Safety Chain Management Technologies for Better Outcomes

If lettuce quality meets the fast food chain’s standards, electronic product information stored in a COA or another form can be forwarded to the packaging plant and uploaded into the food chain’s supply chain management system, allowing the processing facility to better anticipate production scheduling, plan for crop replanting, and optimize inventory control for product rotation schedules of outbound shipments to customers.

• At the plant. The suppliers of ingredients in the sandwich’s special sauce send their safety test information to the FSQA team on COAs. The team holds the ingredients while they examine dozens of e-mails, faxes, PDFs, and spreadsheets to analyze the results prior to approving the ingredients for production. Not only does this take time and add costs, the process is also prone to errors, creating the potential for a noncompliant result. With food safety chain management techniques, all test results are entered into a software solution and analyzed against specifications in real time. If noncompliance is detected, an immediate alert is sent to the appropriate stakeholders, preventing the ingredients from entering and possibly contaminating the sauce production. Not only is a safety or quality issue prevented, but the cost of destroying an entire batch is potentially avoided as well.
• On the Road. Once processed, the chicken fillets are frozen and packaged for shipment to the fast food chain’s regional warehouses. To meet safety standards and the retailers’ quality specification, shipping temperatures should not exceed 15°F. When the trucks arrive at the warehouses, receiving inspectors take temperature samples. If they find that samples exceed critical or quality limits, they consult with the QA manager to determine the appropriate actions. In the meantime, drivers are asked to leave the dock and are not allowed to deliver the shipment, resulting in delays and cost overruns. With a food safety chain management solution, the trucks can be equipped with temperature probes that send continuous readings to distributors’ QA managers, the receiving and FSQA managers at the warehouses, and others. The system can be programmed to issue alerts if the temperature in any product on the truck exceeds 12°F, allowing corrective action to be taken before the maximum limit of 15°F is reached and the entire shipment is compromised in quality and safety.
• At the FSQA office. With food safety chain management in use at every point in the supply chain, all safety and quality data are now time stamped and easily accessed through a single, centralized repository. This allows for in-depth trending and analysis against key performance indicators. Heads of FSQA can use this information to identify best-in-class vendors for all safety and quality attributes; focus FSQA testing on the highest-risk ingredients; request supplier credits where corrective actions are taken on a noncompliant but usable ingredient (correcting sauce viscosity, for example); and adjust processes to keep manufacturing costs within budget.

And, because all safety and quality records are 21 CFR-compliant and can’t be altered, they are available on demand for audits under FDA, USDA, and GFSI schemes such as BRC or SQF, as well as for customer audits.

Consider the above scenarios for every component that goes into that final chicken sandwich and how they meet regulatory and non-regulatory safety requirements, from the grain fed to the chickens to the cooking temperature. Each step along the way will affect the following:

• Consumer Confidence. Consumers need to be able to trust the safety of the finished product as well as product consistency. They know that, regardless of the store location, the lettuce in the sandwich will be crisp and fresh and the sauce will taste familiar.
• Profitability. Throughout the supply chain, yield is maximized, labor is effectively utilized, and vendors with the highest safety record and lowest cost are identified. The fast food chain is able to offer consumers consistent products at an affordable price while remaining profitable. This achievement protects its brand and, ultimately, its market value.

Food safety chain management helps the food and beverage industry promote prevention-based FSQA while delivering safe, high-quality, and consistent products that are affordable to consumers and profitable for shareholders. By minimizing reactive steps to quality and safety issues, this approach will surely help companies enhance products and better identify problems before they occur.