Food safety is non-negotiable

Healthy food is the basis of our well-being and physical fitness, so it is important for us all to be sure that what we eat is not only produced in a safe way, but also properly stored and transported. Traceability, i.e. the ability to trace the entire food supply chain, can help with this. It is worth talking about it out loud, especially on June 7, World Food Safety Day.

The World Food Safety Day was established in 2018, based on the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, on the initiative of the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission. It aims to raise awareness and promote appropriate behavior in the area of food safety. The theme of this year's edition, "Food Standards Save Lives", highlights the role food safety standards play in ensuring the health and well-being of consumers.

For Nestlé, a leading food manufacturer, ensuring product safety and quality is a top priority. The company undertakes a number of activities in this regard throughout the supply chain, starting with the stage of obtaining raw materials. To ensure their high quality, Nestlé follows a strict selection and control process. The raw material is rejected when it does not meet the company's requirements.

- Before they leave the production plants, our products are checked for compliance with current food safety standards. We want to be sure that each batch of products has a repeatable, highest quality and that the products meet the expectations of consumers. That is why we carry out numerous tests in our laboratories to verify compliance with established standards, including sensory ones. We also place great emphasis on education and building awareness within the organization. – emphasizes Beata Korach, Corporate Quality Assurance Manager at Nestlé Polska.

Also from the point of view of another food producer, all aspects related to its safety are extremely important. Especially if, like FoodWell, it is already committed to helping people reach for healthier products so that they can enjoy a better life.

- When developing new products, we pay special attention to the selection of ingredients in order to provide the consumer with a tasty, yet healthy and safe product, in line with their expectations. and food trends. We pay attention to the level of sugar, we limit the use of additional substances to a minimum. We monitor the quality of raw materials that must meet the requirements of our specifications, developed on the basis of applicable standards and legal regulations. We also pay attention to the selection of packaging in order to protect the product in the best possible way and guarantee its stable quality until the end of its shelf life, e.g. by using an appropriate barrier that maintains a protective atmosphere in the packaging of nuts - explains Magdalena Pawlicka, Head of the Research and Development Department at FoodWell.

FoodWell is a company with well-recognized brands (Bakalland, Delecta, Purella, BeRAW, Anatol), which cares about the quality of its goods and that they are safely stored and delivered to store shelves. In this regard, the company closely cooperates with its logistics partner - Raben Logistics Polska. As an operator that also deals with the logistics of food products, this year Raben joins the celebrations of the International Food Safety Day, which traditionally falls on June 7.

- On this day, in our warehouses and offices, we will discuss the role of a logistics operator in the supply chain. We also want to emphasize the importance of the consumer perspective. We must remember that a sample bar stored in our warehouse will eventually end up in the hands of the consumer, who may be a child of any of us. – comments Justyna Śliwińska-Fąs, Quality and Risk Director at Raben Logistics Polska.

That is why it is so important to follow procedures related to maintaining hygiene and cleanliness in the warehouse and means of transport.

- Every actor in the supply chain plays a vital role in ensuring food safety. When products leave our factories, we need to make sure they are properly stored and arrive at the point of sale in safe conditions. That is why cooperation with a reliable logistics operator is so important. – says Paweł Alreadyak, Supply Chain Operations Manager at Nestlé Polska.

Raben warehouses are mostly newly built facilities in good technical condition, and the tightness and proper maintenance of the warehouse is a very important aspect for the safety of stored or reloaded food products. The same applies to the means of transport used for deliveries and thanks to which safety can be ensured at every stage of food delivery. The most important, however, is the involvement of employees and suppliers in ensuring safe storage and transport conditions

- We are working on building awareness of threats and proper prevention through, among others, reminding lessons devoted to: recognizing threats to food safety and appropriate response to them, as well as applying the procedures resulting from our HACCP analysis. The Food Safety Day is an opportunity to join the campaign carried out around the world and is part of building a strong Safety Culture at Raben, in which we care about our own and others' health. – sums up Justyna Śliwińska-Fąs.

Let us also remember the importance of consumer education and awareness in this matter. Each of us has the right to information on the composition, origin and production of food, as well as to consciously choose what we eat. Proper labelling, transparent information and consumer education are key to building trust and ensuring safe access to food. In addition, pay attention to the concept of traceability, i.e. the ability to trace the origin of food, which plays a key role in detecting threats.

Traceability is the entire process of identifying and closely monitoring products at every stage of production, processing and distribution. Thus, it allows you to recreate the full history of their flow throughout the supply chain. This is extremely important, e.g. in the case of problems with the quality or safety of the delivered goods, where the source of the problem must be quickly located, the affected batches precisely identified and recalled efficiently and effectively. Effective traceability is one of the foundations of building trust between producers and consumers, which is extremely important today.

- Ensuring the safety of products supplied to the market involves registering, collecting and sharing a huge amount of data. It is important to use proven and global solutions that should be the foundation of an efficient and effective tracking system. It is possible min. thanks to GS1 standards. The key ones include: GTIN number (EAN code) on the product, GLN, which allows to identify both entities and locations, or SSCC used to monitor logistic units. The complement is the GS1 logistic label and the GS1-128 code, which is a carrier of data about its content, e.g.: product, batch number, expiry date, or country of origin and electronic messages (EDI) - Hanna Walczak from GS1 Polska.

World Food Safety Day is an important way to raise people's awareness of food safety issues, discuss common approaches to improving food safety across sectors, and promote solutions and ways to increase it. Therefore, it may be worth considering not only your own consumer habits on this day, but also activities that can contribute to promoting food safety and quality in the future.