Helping Small to Medium Suppliers with their Food Safety Programs

By: Sarah Malenich, Director, Sales & Marketing, Safe Quality Food Institute

At Safe Quality Food Institute (SQFI) our mission and vision of protecting the food supply chain from farm to fork is again exemplified with the addition of our NEW SQF Food Safety Fundamentals programs. These four new codes are SQFI’s solution to GFSI’s Global Markets Programme. The goal of these new codes is to provide a stream line approach for GFSI certification for small and medium emerging businesses that will meet retailer needs. Our objective is also to facilitate market access locally, create mutual acceptance along the supply chain and provide a framework for mentoring smaller and medium sized businesses.

Our NEW fundamentals program is divided up into two different categories with a step wise approach for process improvement, and the answer to the needs of retailers who want to give the smaller and medium sized suppliers who don’t have a lot of resources to implement the SQF Food Safety Program.

The two difference categories are:

• SQF Basic Fundamentals – for Primary Production
• SQF Basic Fundamentals – for Manufacturing
• SQF Intermediate Fundamentals – for Primary Production
• SQF Intermediate Fundamentals – for Manufacturing

SQFI is the only GFSI CPO that has developed programs for both the Primary Production and Manufacturing Industries.  We worked directly with retailers and suppliers on our NEW codes and now we would like you to give us your feedback as well. The public comment process is open until Midnight Eastern Standard Time on May 7, 2018.  You can find the codes for review here. Your feedback is essential to making this program a success! Please submit any feedback to publiccomment@sqfi.com.

Below you will find a quick explanation of our goals, approach and key changes to our NEW Fundamentals program:

Goals

• Stream line approach for GFSI certification
• Minimize costs for the site by lowering the number of requirements to allow for shorter audit durations.
• Develop a code for small businesses that will meet retailer needs
• Create a mechanism for auditors to advance into additional FSCs

Approach

• Separate primary and manufacturing Codes
• Simplified requirements for each industry
• Step wise approach for continuous improvement and knowledge building
• Re-designed Part A of the code
• Adjust auditor requirements to aid in their FSC comprehension

Key Changes

• Separated system elements for primary and manufacturing
• Deleted requirement for desk audit
• Removed Score (the audit is now just pass/not pass)
• Eliminated unannounced audits
• Simplified auditor requirements
• Simplified system elements and GAP/GMPs

If you are a smaller to medium supplier with limited resources to implement and sustain a successful SQF Program, and you would like to develop and place on the market trustful products while working to improve transparency of your own safety and quality requirements, then the SQF Fundamentals program is for you!