supplier qualification program

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) places a burden on retailers and processors to ensure accountability of the sources and safety of their products. As such, continuous verification of supplier qualification and compliance is required.

This means that each supplier to a food processor or retailer must be able to demonstrate compliance with requisite laws and regulations.

Someone in the organization must maintain an ongoing safety relationship with each of the suppliers and ensure that they are actively certified under a GFSI recognized scheme. Each relationship should be examined and areas of vulnerability, beyond the GFSI framework should be specified in a vendor agreement. 

It is important that in addition to the supplier qualifications, a recall program continues to strive towards a more collaborative and integrated recall program.