Quality Matters: Preventing Food Contamination and Product Recalls

From Compliance to Performance

In Celebration of World Quality Week

From 11^th to 15^th November, businesses and organisations worldwide will celebrate World Quality Week, an annual event that raises awareness about the importance of quality management. This year’s theme, “Quality: From Compliance to Performance,” emphasises the need for organisations to go beyond mere regulatory adherence and focus on driving outstanding performance. Quality principles are the key to navigating challenges, achieving long-term success and improving overall efficiency.

Quality issues: still a persistent challenge

Despite advancements, quality-related issues continue to pose significant challenges. Factors such as product recalls, contamination, labelling and packaging errors, together with inconsistent product quality, can severely undermine the effectiveness of the whole organisation.

Both Tesco and Waitrose have announced product recalls since the start of October this year. Tesco recalled its Tesco Finest 6 All Butter Pastry Mince Pies after it was found that the product might contain pieces of dried glue from the packaging. This contaminant made the pies unsafe to eat. Waitrose issued recalls for its Easy to Cook Scottish Salmon En Croute and Easy to Cook Salmon and Sweet Potato Curry, due to a failure to declare certain allergens on the packaging. The products contained milk, mustard, soya, and wheat (gluten), which were not listed on the label, posing a significant health risk to those with allergies or intolerances.

These recalls resulted in significant wastage, added substantial costs to the bottom line, and damaged brand reputation, whilst also negatively impacting the environment.

Consistently high quality is never by coincidence, but is the consequence of disciplined due diligence at every step of the production process, from goods in to the retailer. It is relentless. No sooner has one production batch finished, than another begins. Product changeovers are particularly challenging, especially where the manufacturer has a large product portfolio and many short batch runs.

Some Root Causes of Quality Problems

Cross Contamination & the Need for Rigorous Clean Downs

Cross-contamination poses significant risks to food quality and safety. It can facilitate the transfer of harmful pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, from one food product to another. Additionally, if the same production line is used to process allergen-free products immediately after handling nuts or other allergenic foods, without thorough cleaning, the risk of cross-contamination, of course, increases dramatically. This not only jeopardises consumer health and, more specifically, the risk of severe allergic reactions, plus the inevitable damage to the brand.

A recent incident underscores this danger: thousands of sandwiches, wraps, and salads containing a specific variety of salad leaves were recalled after the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) linked them to an E. coli outbreak that hospitalised at least 86 people.

Raw Materials

To mitigate such risks, food factories must implement better raw materials and in-process quality control checks to track and trace ingredients and conduct quality checks on individual and grouped materials. Early detection of cross-contamination can prevent compromised products from progressing down the production line.

Harford offers Materials and Process Quality Solutions to empower manufacturers to ensure consistent quality from raw materials to finished goods, focusing on achieving excellence, ‘right first time, every time’. With end-to-end traceability, 5 Whys and Fishbone Diagrams, it becomes easier to identify the root causes of quality issues, ensuring consistently high quality throughout production.

Whilst implementing robust quality control measures is essential for preventing contamination, the methods used for recording data can also significantly impact overall quality management effectiveness.

Paper Recording & Reporting

Paper recording is another major contributor to quality issues, as it slows processes and lacks real-time visibility of production processes. Without instant, actionable data, businesses struggle to achieve a “Right First Time” approach.  Paper-based systems can also very quickly become out of date.

One of our brewery clients faced this challenge—they were using paper recording and couldn’t identify the root cause of downtime in real time. They sought solutions to reduce paper recording, improve quality consistency, and gain real-time visibility of performance metrics.

Harford installed a fully paperless system at their facility. As a result, all quality checks became instantly visible and traceable, allowing operators and shift managers to work efficiently in a paperless environment. Management also benefits from real-time data visibility on schedule adherence, production performance, quality, efficiency and instant traceability. Live ‘Short Interval Control’ screens above production lines provide instant updates on key performance indicators and improvement opportunities, enhancing operational efficiency and data accuracy.

Complacency – No Silver Bullet

The longer a factory operates without quality issues or ‘near misses’, the higher the risk of encountering them. Quality issues are necessarily complex and require a holistic approach to enhance production quality effectively. Once quality and compliance challenges are resolved, each factory can focus on improving performance.

Today, the Harford Quality Solution is unquestionably the most comprehensive and advanced system available to manufacturers. Harford quality solutions combine decades of experience with continuous improvement, heavily influenced by user input from FMCG, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical manufacturers.

When you’re ready to minimise risks and enhance your quality control, we are ready to listen. Please contact us at info@harfordcontrol.com or call us on +44 (0)1225 764461.