23 April 25
All Things BRCGS with Alexandra Rothery
After our successful showcase at the Food and Drink Expo, we’re excited to share an interview with our Quality Manager, Alexandra Rothery, as she explores the world of food and drink logistics, quality, and BRCGS.
Read along as we explore:
- What is BRCGS
- Warehousing practices and innovations
- Transport challenges and solutions
- Consistent positive ratings and how we achieve them
- Future goals and our vision for the industry
What is BRCGS?
Q1 a) Can you explain what BRCGS certification is and why it’s important for Howard Tenens?
BRCGS certification ensures the safety, quality, integrity and legality of products during storage and distribution. Achieving certification means we can ensure the required operational standards are met throughout the supply chain. In turn this ensures we meet regulatory compliance requirements, enhances operational efficiency and builds strong relationships and trust with our customers, as they know their products are handled to the best possible standards when in our warehouses and on our vehicles.
Q1 b) How does Howard Tenens ensure compliance with BRCGS standards in our warehousing and transport operations?
We have a structured framework in place that ensures compliance is met through rigorous risk assessments, an internal auditing programme, facility management and senior
commitment to the certification. But most importantly, BRCGS certification isn’t a one-person role, it’s a cultural mindset on our sites. Each one of our team members knows their role within the supply chain and how important it is to maintain standards. Every single team member genuinely cares about the customers they work with and the products they handle.
Q1 c) What are some of the key challenges in maintaining high food safety standards, and how do we overcome them?
Howard Tenens isn’t a one-size-fits-all operation; we tailor each of our contracts to meet our customers’ needs, ensuring we
deliver mutual value. This means that what works on one site might not work on another; we have a range of diverse operations across the group, each with its own requirements. This can mean that meeting all requirements at all times can feel like we’re keeping 20 plates spinning in the air at once, but we love the challenge, and it wouldn’t be Howard Tenens if we didn’t treat each of our customers like they were our only one!
Warehousing practices and innovations
Q2 a) What specific measures do we take to ensure food safety in our warehouses?
Ensuring food safety in our warehouses is a top priority, and we take several specific measures to maintain the highest standards.
Hygiene Protocols: We have strict cleaning schedules and personal hygiene standards to keep our facilities spotless.
Temperature Control: We maintain precise temperature settings to ensure food stays fresh and safe.
Pest Control: We have robust pest control measures in place, implemented by our professionally contracted pest control companies, to keep unwanted guests out.
Regular Audits: Frequent audits, both internal and external (whether that’s certification driven or customer quality assurance audits), all help us to stay compliant with food-safety guidelines and catch any issues early before they cause any concerns.
Team Training: Continuous training and employee development ensures our team is well-versed in food safety protocols.
Q2 b) How do we monitor & control the temperature & humidity levels in our warehouses?
This can vary from customer to customer and product to product. Some products require strict temperature monitoring based on their nature and tolerance limits. This is done through professionally installed and calibrated equipment, along with multiple, verified and validated, daily checks on temperature and equipment.
Whereas other contracts might require datalogging of temperatures and humidity levels within the storage facility, with monthly downloads and reporting to customers.
Q2 c) Can you describe our process for handling &storing different types of food products to prevent cross-contamination?
Finished goods are risk assessed when they’re brought into the facility to identify the level of risk associated with storage and distribution. The risk to these products can generally be mitigated through the packaging and palletisation.
Raw materials and open foods are more challenging to manage; each delivery is assessed to identify the risk associated with each product in the order, and teams are trained on how to correctly palletise them to prevent contamination.
Allergens are managed in a hierarchy format, for example, peanuts and tree nuts are completely segregated from other stock, whereas milk-based products can be stored on top of products that contain both milk and soya.
Despite the amount of allergens in a product, any allergenic material will be stored and loaded onto vehicles, ensuring they are segregated from non-allergenic stock or stock containing other allergens.
Let’s not forget organic products! We treat organic status as if it is an allergen ensuring the integrity of organic status isn’t not compromised during storage or distribution.
Q2 d) What role does regular auditing play in maintaining our food safety standards in warehousing?
Regular auditing is crucial for maintaining our food safety standards in warehousing. It ensures we consistently comply with BRCGS guidelines, identifying potential issues before they become problems. Audits help verify that our processes, from storage to distribution, meet the highest safety and quality standards.
Regular auditing also provides development opportunities for our internal auditing teams, as they cannot audit areas of the operation where they have direct influence. It provides an opportunity for teams to get out and learn about other departments and what they do!
Transport challenges and solutions
Q3 a) How do we ensure that food products are transported safely and hygienically?
The forefront of ensuring the safety and hygiene of all distributed products is managed by trained personnel; every team member involved in the loading and distribution process knows and understands the requirements.
We have robust cleaning and sanitation procedures in place. Our fleet undergoes regular cleaning to prevent contamination, and our team take pride in the condition that products are delivered to our customers in.
For products that are environmentally controlled, we have dedicated specialised vehicles equipped with systems to maintain the ideal conditions specific to contract or product requirements.
These vehicles also have real-time monitoring capabilities to track the environment of the product throughout its journey to the final destination ,allowing us to quickly address any potential issues that arise during distribution.
Q3 b) What protocols are in place to handle food products during transportation to prevent contamination?
When deliveries arrive to us, the team will inspect both the product, trailer bed and temperature if required to ensure we only accept deliveries/products that meet requirements.
Ensuring the safe handling of food products during transportation is crucial, and we have several protocols in place to prevent contamination; including the cleaning programmes we have in place for all of our vehicles, as well as the environmental monitoring of vehicles.
Before loading any order onto a vehicle, the team will physically inspect every trailer to ensure it meets standards and will work with our customers on a case-by-case basis to reject any vehicles or products that do not meet requirements.
All of our vehicles are also included in regular industry-lead inspections as well as our internal auditing programme to ensure compliance standards are met on a constant basis.
Q3 c) How do we train our drivers and transport team on food safety practices?
Every team member has undergone BRCGS and food-safety awareness training, so they understand the requirements and their responsibilities when it comes to meeting and maintaining standards. Every site has a representative who acts as a key point of contact for team members, and we have a fully trained and capable HACCP team and spillage procedures in place on every site.
Positive ratings and how we achieve them
Q4 a) What factors contribute to our consistent positive ratings in food safety audits?
The culture on our sites! Without the dedication and genuine love of the job from our teams we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the standards we have, it’s all down to them and their commitment.
Q4 b) How do we continuously improve our food safety standards to maintain high ratings?
We listen to our team and our customers. Our team know their operations inside and out, and our customers know their products. Listening to their expertise facilitates the implementation of new processes that work efficiently.
If something needs changing or updating, this collaborative approach allows us to ensure we facilitate a process of continuous improvement that benefits both our customers and our operations. We always ask for feedback before making any changes.
Sometimes this is industry led, like moving to a paperless/app-based system for internal auditing, or introducing new requirements with guideline updates.
Future goals and our vision for the industry
Q5 a) What are our future goals regarding food safety standards and BRCGS certification?
With the recent increase in environmental management as well as quality, we are looking into extending the scope of our sites certifications in various aspects of quality. We are already ahead regarding environmental management and we would love for this to continue into as many areas as possible.
Q5 b) How do we plan to stay ahead of industry trends and regulations in food safety?
We’re always looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve. On a top level we can share some strategies that we are exploring to ensure and improve food safety and certification standards in our warehouses:
Collaborative Partnerships: Working closely with regulatory bodies and industry experts to stay informed about upcoming changes in food safety regulations. This helps us to adapt quickly and stay ahead of both global and UK regulations. We’d love to work with federations, committees and as part of steering groups to challenge industry standards, with science-backed research and help to push forward exciting initiatives that benefit both the economy and the environment.
Predictive Analytics: By moving to an up-to- date and paperless system, we can start to analyse trends on our sites, as well as cross-
analyse data trends across the group, to identify and project trends to anticipate potential issues before they arise.
This proactive approach will allow us to invest in preventive measures, rather than corrective, ensuring continuous compliance and performance improvement with food safety standards.
