Verify Suppliers

Even after you have considered a supplier and approved their procedures for controlling hazards, you need to verify that the control is working.  There are several ways to verify and ensure that the supplier is controlling a hazard, including visiting the supplier facility to review the food safety practices of the organization. You may require the supplier to sample and test their product to show the hazard is under control, or you may conduct testing at your processing facility. Records such as the supplier’s food safety plan can be reviewed.

In the aflatoxin example the supplier is responsible for testing raw peanuts for aflatoxin and producing a certificate of analysis.

Here’s how you would document that you verified the supplier is controlling for the hazard of aflatoxin.

SUPPLY-CHAIN CONTROL
Ingredient	Approved Supplier	Critical Limit*	Verification Activity				Records
			What	How	How often	Who
Incoming shelled raw peanuts	USA Peanuts, Nutville, USA	<15 ppb average; no individual reading >25ppm	Aflatoxin level	Laboratory testing – Certificate of Analysis from supplier; no visible mold	Each lot of received raw peanuts	Testing lab technician Receiving operator	Certificate of Analysis and incoming goods log

*Varies depending on country regulation.
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Here’s how you would document that you verified the supplier is controlling for the hazard of foreign material.

SUPPLY-CHAIN CONTROLS
Ingredient	Approved Supplier	Critical Limit*	Verification Activity				Records
			What	How	How often	Who
Incoming shelled raw peanuts	USA Peanuts, Nutville, USA	No foreign material between 7 mm and 25 mm in size	Foreign material	Audit of supplier’s practices; supplier’s records; Certificate of Analysis	Audit visit every year; Certificate of Analysis for each received lot of peanuts	Company auditor Receiving operator	Certificate of Analysis and incoming goods log; audit records

Remember if the receiving company has their own process to remove foreign material from incoming raw peanuts, then that is a process control, not a supplier control.