Top Five Reasons to Care About Food Production Traceability (Spoiler: Avoiding Jail Is the Biggie)
8/15/2019
One of the reasons why it costs a little extra to use a co-manufacturer is because they have quality control programs in place.
Whatever you do, you don’t want to end up being the next Peanut Corporation of America.
The Peanut Corporation of America collapsed in 2009 after a massive outbreak of salmonella linked to its products resulted in a recall that bankrupted the company.
You will want to contract only with co-manufacturers with good quality controls because:
You want to ensure consistency of product. If your co-man doesn’t use consistent ingredients (and just buys whatever is cheapest that week), you won’t have consistent product. That can ruin your reputation and branding.
You want to avoid paying fines to the FDA, USDA and the like. If your co-man uses substandard ingredients or breaks regulatory standards, your claims (such as this product is gluten-free or this product promotes weight loss) may not hold, causing problems with regulatory agencies. If you break the rules, you will be dealing with fines at the most lenient level. Probably worse.
You want to avoid recalls at all costs. You may think there’s no way your company could ever get into such trouble, but I’ve worked with companies who have absolutely no traceability plans in place, and trust me: the contamination of one ingredient can result in a recall of every product on every shelf.
You don’t want to go bankrupt. Most small companies can’t recover from a recall. Recalled product is destroyed; you’ll have to prove you’ve reformed your practices. Stores won’t want your product anymore.
You don’t want to go to jail. If anyone get hurt by your product, you can end up behind bars.
A good co-man or co-packer will have a quality control program in place that supports excellent food production traceability of ingredients. This way, if an ingredient in one batch is contaminated, you will be able to find out exactly which batch of product was affected. You will know exactly which shipments of product are bad, and where those products went. You will then only have to recall that particular batch of product instead of having to perform a massive recall of all the product you have out in the market.
Learn from the Peanut Corporation of America. Pay the extra to work with a co-man or co-packer with top-rated quality controls in place. Quality and food safety matters — a lot. You’ll sleep better at night; trust me.