Week 13 - GOODS IN - We've Got SALSA Sussed
Week 13 - GOODS IN
Hi Everyone!
Goods In
Goods intake controls and procedures are super important!
Why? Because this is the first point in your process where you are taking
control of the raw materials. Raw materials include ingredients and food
contact packaging. Food contact packaging has to be handled in the same way as ingredients
are. They are touching the food when packed, it is very important to keep this
in mind when handling and storing it.
We are going to chat through the following; accepting raw
materials into your business, the checks you need to perform when accepting
deliveries, what needs recording on your ‘Goods In’ record, and useful
documents and equipment for the goods in team to use to do their job
efficiently.
Let’s get started!
What’s coming next…
Supplier
& Raw Material Controls
Week 13 – Raw
Material Risk Assessment
Goods In – what do you need to show your SALSA auditor?
Supplier & Raw Material
Approval Procedure
Approved Supplier List
Goods In Record
Supplier & Raw Material
Approval Procedure
In the last blog, we started to write
the Raw Material & Supplier Approval Procedure, with our Supplier Approval
Criteria. Now, we need to add the Goods Intake Procedure element to it.
Goods In Procedure
There are many methods for approaching
how Goods In can work, so we are going to run through a simple version. If you
include all of the following items in your procedure, and then carry them out
correctly, you will have a good system in place.
·
The types of raw materials you handle, i.e.
chilled, ambient, frozen, allergens, food contact packaging etc
·
What checks are performed at goods in, i.e.
temperature, vehicle, packaging, pallets, batch codes, dates etc
·
How you carry out the abovementioned checks. The
procedure needs to explain this clearly, so that you can train staff easily.
·
The criteria you check against – Approved
Supplier & Raw Material List
·
Where you record the checks – Goods In Record
·
Documentation you retain from the deliveries –
Delivery Notes & Certificates of Analysis/Conformity
·
What your rejection criteria is
The checks which have to be
completed at Goods In will vary depending on the type of raw materials you are
accepting. When writing your procedure, only detail what applies to your
ingredients, and how you carry them out. Use examples from everything I have
detailed below.
Goods In Area
There should be a location where
deliveries unload in a safe manner, which should preferably lead directly into
your storage areas.
Approved Raw Material &
Supplier List
The Goods In team/person needs a Raw
Material and Supplier List to check that the deliveries arriving on
site are the correct raw material from the approved supplier.
Last week (Week 12 Supplier
Approval), we created an Approved Raw Material & Supplier List (below),
which we can use for the Goods In Team:
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1.6.1
RAW MATERIAL, SUPPLIER & ALLERGEN RECORD |
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Supplier |
Ingredient / Packaging Supplied |
Contact No. |
Allergens Contained |
Storage |
Specification Received |
Specification Expiry (3 years) |
Accreditation standard |
Expiry Date of Certificate |
Micro |
Allergen |
Physical |
Chemical |
Adulteration
& Substitution |
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However, they do not need ALL of
the information. It is best to keep it as simple as possible for checking off
the list against the raw materials coming into the business. I just take the
information from the approved supplier list, put it into a new document, remove
the information that I don’t need, leaving a simple, easy to use list for
checking against. This means the team will be more efficient in carrying out
the checks. For example:
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GOODS IN
- APPROVED RAW MATERIAL & SUPPLIER LIST |
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Supplier |
Ingredient / Packaging Supplied |
Allergens Contained |
Storage |
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Goods In Record
The Goods In team also need a Goods
In Record to record the deliveries arriving, and to check off the
condition they arrive in is acceptable.
Goods In checks should consist of
the following:
·
Date (of the delivery)
·
Supplier (checked against the approved raw
material and supplier list)
·
Raw Material (checked against the approved raw
material and supplier list)
·
Packaging & Pallets Intact (visual check of
damage to packaging and pallets)
·
Vehicle Clean, Free from Contamination &
Pests (visual check of the load carrying area of the vehicle)
·
Best Before / Use By Date (check dates are in
line with what you accept, some businesses set a minimum shelf life on delivery
with their suppliers)
·
Vehicle Temp (if chilled or frozen)
·
Product Temp (if chilled or frozen)
·
Batch Code (from delivery note and / or packaging)
·
Delivery Note Number (from delivery note!)
·
Initial (the initials of the staff member who is
accepting the goods in)
Date, Supplier & Raw
Material
Recording of the date, supplier and
raw material are quite self-explanatory. If you have a business with a minimal
amount of ingredients being delivered, you could write each ingredient individually
on the Goods In Record, then work your way across the record completing each of
the further checks mentioned. This is the best practice way.
Delivery Note Numbers &
Batch Codes
If you have a large amount of
different raw materials being delivered on one load, it might be impractical to
record every ingredient on the delivery.
If this is the case for you, there
is an option to record the supplier name, and the delivery note number to cross
reference against. To use this option, you need to use the delivery note from
your supplier to record all of the batch numbers of the ingredients being
delivered on it.
If you ask your supplier, they
might have the capabilities to print batch numbers on the delivery notes.
A cross check of the batches they
have printed against what has been delivered, is still advised.
If the deliveries are chilled or
frozen, temperatures still need to be taken. Write one of the ingredients on
the Goods In Record for the delivery, and take the temperature of it. This
temperature is used as representative for the rest of the load.
Delivery Notes and Goods In
Records form the first part of your Traceability. They are very important, and
when you are required to do a Traceability Test for an audit, then you will
need to provide this information. Your EHO (Environmental Health Officer) and
your SALSA auditor will want to see that you have a robust Traceability System
in place. This is to prove that, if anything went wrong, and a raw material or
a finished product had to be recalled out of the supply chain, you have the
capability and systems in place to make sure it can be done quickly and
efficiently. We have a full section on Incidents, Recalls & Withdrawals
coming up in a future section.
Delivery notes need to be obtained
from suppliers with the delivery, whether or not you are writing all ingredients
on the Goods In record. Save all paperwork from deliveries with each of the
associated Goods In Records, in a folder. These need to be saved for the shelf
life of the product, plus 1 year for SALSA purposes.
Other documentation which might
arrive with your ingredients are, Certificates of Conformity and Certificates
of Analysis……
·
Certificates of Conformity - are
like a statement which confirms that the ingredients being delivered are as per
the agreed raw material specification.
·
Certificates of Analysis - are a
certificate showing the results of testing which has been carried out on the
batch being delivered to you. For example, if you are buying a gluten free oat,
you would want a certificate of analysis to state it has been tested for gluten
and the result is <20ppm (20 parts per million or less). Another example is,
if you are purchasing a high-risk ingredient, then you may want to agree the
microbiological criteria, and have that tested per batch. This is especially
important if you are producing a high-risk food with the ingredient.
Packaging & Pallet Checks
When the deliveries turn up at
your door, it is important to check that they are not damaged. If they are, you
may not be able to use them. If you have accepted them without checking, then
you may not be able to get a refund with your supplier.
When checking packaging, you must
look for damp patches, pierced packaging, holes, tears, rips and signs it has
been tampered with. These damages could have been made by pests gnawing at the
packaging, damaged through careless handling, dropping or falling in transit,
forklift prongs piercing, leaks in the delivery vehicle or damp storage etc.
Packaging may also be damaged
through pallets being damaged and splinters piercing packaging, so pallets also
need checking too.
If pallets are damaged, you do not
really want to accept them onto site anyway, as you will be introducing
splinters of wood, which could cause a contamination risk. However, you could
always transfer the delivery onto an intact pallet if needed, rather than
rejecting it. Ensure the damaged pallet is taken to an external area for removal.
Vehicle Free from Contamination
& Pests
When a delivery arrives and is
being offloaded, it is important to check the load carrying area of the vehicle
for signs of pests and cleanliness. If there are spillages, then it could mean
your ingredients have been contaminated. Spillages can come in the form of
allergens, or depending on what the transport company permit on mixed loads,
could also be chemicals. If there are signs of pests, they may leave droppings
or gnaw marks, and could also urinate on the ingredients and external packaging
of raw materials being delivered.
This is why it is important to
check the vehicle! A lot of people I meet, feel as though their delivery
drivers wont like them checking the vehicle. However, it is standard practice
in the food industry, and they will soon become used to it. And it certainly
doesn’t take long to check!
Best Before & Use By Dates
Important for two reasons. The
obvious one being, you need to make sure the ingredients are within their shelf
life on arrival!
The second reason is that, if you
have minimum order quantities (MOQ), you need to make sure that you can use the
full quantity of the ingredient within its shelf life. You will need to agree
with your supplier the minimum shelf life upon delivery that you need for the
ingredient, prior to ordering. Otherwise, you may end up with a large amount of
ingredients you cannot use and get wasted.
If you have ingredients with large
MOQ’s, you may want to give the Goods In team/person the ‘minimum shelf life on
delivery’ information for those ingredients.
Temperature Checks
Upon arrival, the temperature of
chilled and frozen ingredients should be taken. To do this you will require a
between pack probe or an infrared probe. You do not want to be piercing
packaging or the product when you take temperatures, as this will damage it and
affect its shelf life and contaminate it. Please see Week 9 Environmental
Controls for further information on probes.
Temperatures you are looking for,
for the frozen deliveries are -18ºC,
although you can accept up to -12ºC
as long as it goes directly into storage, and has not increased beyond -12ºC.
Temperatures you are looking for,
for the chilled deliveries are 5ºC,
although you can accept up to 8ºC.
There are exceptions to this rule for ingredients which have specific lower temperatures
for storage, such as meats and vacuum-packed products. Therefore, you need to
check industry guidelines, to check your products and ingredients comply with
the regulations.
If needed, you can ascertain the
chilled or frozen temperatures of the delivery vehicles. The vehicle has a
digital display which shows the temperature of the load carrying area. However,
this temperature needs to be taken prior to the back doors being opened to see
the true temperature. As soon as the doors are opened, the temperature
increases immediately. In addition to this, the vehicles should also be fitted
with temperature data loggers, which track the temperature throughout the
journey, so they will be able to provide you with this information. This
information is usually sent over from the supplier’s head office.
Now, its time to get checking off
your deliveries. Have a good week!
If you need assistance, please
feel free to contact me! On that note, that is the end of this section. Please
do not hesitate to ask any questions.
Be careful and stay safe!
Ruth
Ruthshawconsultingltd@gmail.com
07732
966 836
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