Food safety is governed by national legislation that sets a sufficient mandatory level of compliance. Once a product is launched in the market, it is incumbent on manufacturers to follow food safety systems to ensure the food reaches the consumer safely and local authorities should monitor the process. On such a critical issue, we believe it is our responsibility to go beyond the regulatory requirements and perform to the best of our abilities across all of our markets. This is why we have adopted the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) certification for our private brand suppliers.

Group approach to best-in-class standards

In 2010, we audited 82% of our private brand production sites to a GFSI standard or comparable strict criteria. Although there is no official benchmark, our performance in this area is industry leading, something we are very proud of. However, achieving GFSI certification takes time, planning and time-bound corrective actions, especially for smaller suppliers.
To this end, GFSI launched a complementary solution, the Global Markets Toolkit, to help small, traditional and local suppliers gradually meet the strict certification requirements. We will start exploring opportunities to work closely with our smaller suppliers in the adoption of the Global Markets Toolkit or other comparable scheme.

Responses to local challenges

At the global level, there are two key challenges for ensuring a high degree of food safety and quality within our supply chain. The first is how we work with suppliers who do not meet our rigorous standards. For those suppliers whose food safety systems require significant improvement, we reserve the right to work jointly with them on improvement, following a strict and quick plan for corrective actions. To ensure the required changes are made, we revisit the suppliers to confirm compliance.

The second key challenge is how we work in Romania and Indonesia. The circumstances and dynamics of these markets present unique challenges and demand different approaches than developed markets in terms of food safety. With regards to Super Indo in Indonesia, we go well beyond the minimum regulatory compliance and audit private brand suppliers based on the national Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). 10 production sites were audited in 2010 against GMP in Indonesia.

In 2010 in Romania, we also went beyond the regulatory requirements and developed an audit program that evaluates all suppliers annually as well as all new private brand suppliers before any collaboration begins. We also designed and implemented methodology for the withdrawal of products, designed a new audit scheme for private brand suppliers and developed a database of private brand audit results. In total, we audited 85 production sites in 2010, up from 10 in 2009, representing 90% of our private brand suppliers in Romania.

What do our stakeholders think about it?

Working with Mega Image to meet GFSI standards has been a challenge, but it is something we were very keen to do. We want to supply the best quality product we can, so any help doing this is welcomed. It has also led us to securing new business, which more than makes up for any costs we have incurred.

Radu Bunea, General Manager , Horticola International Sevis, supplier of dairy products for our private brand Gusturi Romanesti.

 

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