Within your food business, there is an activity that needs to be part of your verification processes. That is the one around actually making sure that the information, or the ingredient listing, you have printed on your packaging is actually a true and correct reflection of what is actually in the food. So, I’m just going to go through the process of how you go through and verify that ingredient statement against your packaging.
Recipe or product formulation
The first step is to go through and get your recipe. Check that the recipe that you have is the most current recipe and it is the recipe that is being used by the production staff in order to manufacture that particular food product.
Raw Material Specifications
The next step is based on the raw materials – the raw ingredients – used in that particular recipe, or formulation. Go through and collect all the raw material specifications from your suppliers. Make sure they are the most up to date and current specifications. When you have got all these raw material specifications, you can also go and double check against their packaging just to make sure there is no major issues between the two.
Current Ingredient Statement
Our third step is to get a current ingredient statement from your actual product packaging. Get a copy of the label or get a copy of the packaging. We want to get all of these things lined out in front of us before we start doing our verification activity.
Finished Product Specification
The final piece of evidence, or piece of information, that we need to perform this process is to get our current finished product specification. So this is the specification that we have developed within our own food business stating what the ingredient listings are for particular products, or a particular product.
So, once you have got all four pieces of information or four groups of information in front of you, you can then sit down to do perform a comparison between what the recipe and raw materials to what is actually displayed on your finished product packaging and your finished product specification.
This is generally quite an easy process because you can do it by elimination. Look what’s on the raw material specs. Make sure whatever is on those raw material specifications is actually stated within your product packaging or ingredient statement and on your finished product specification. Don’t forget to take into account what your particular ingredient statement rules and regulations are for your particular country.
This activity should be done on a regular basis and included in your verification schedule.
