Tag Archives: safety

Coronavirus Pandemic Turns U.S. Food and Beverage Supply Chains on Their Heads

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Coronavirus Pandemic Turns U.S. Food and Beverage Supply Chains on Their Heads

Coronavirus Pandemic Turns U.S. Food and Beverage Supply Chains on Their Heads

Current U.S. food supply chains are facing a severe emergency due to the current health situation, so how can these companies meet crisis-level fulfillment goals while avoiding introducing pathogens into an already stressed food supply chain?

Food and Beverage Supply Chains

Our current coronavirus-world has turned food and beverage supply chains on their heads, highlighting the importance of supply chain visibility and meeting U.S. FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) guidance.

FSMA aims to prevent and mitigate food-borne illnesses, which, according to the FDA website, under “normal” conditions, sicken about 48 million Americans annually – a significant public health burden.

But current U.S. food supply chains are facing a severe emergency due to the current health situation – store closings, social distancing, self-isolation, and panic grocery buying.

Food and beverage manufacturers are scrambling to fulfill orders.

How can these companies meet crisis-level fulfillment goals while avoiding introducing pathogens into an already stressed food supply chain?

FMSA Guidelines for Short- and Long-Term Food Safety

If your company is responsible for manufacturing, processing, packing, transporting or storing raw or finished food products or beverages and must comply with food-borne pathogen reduction requirements, consider the following steps.

They’ll ensure your customers receive non-damaged, top-quality foods:

  1. Familiarize or refamiliarize your personnel with existing FSMA guidelines that define safe food management criteria.
  2. Explore the recent FSMA draft guidance, “Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration: Guidance for Industry” to ensure your food materials remain in compliance with government guidance. This newest guidance covers necessary written actions, training, procedures, and steps to take if mitigation strategies have been incorrectly implemented–including corrective steps to identify and correct a problem that has occurred and measures to reduce its recurrence. Corrective actions must be documented and are subject to verification.
  3. Employ tools that ensure you bypass common food contamination problems by providing overarching supply chain visibility and optimal shipping and handling decisions, so you can deliver the highest-quality food products as soon as possible while remaining compliant.

Read more Coronavirus Pandemic Turns U.S. Food and Beverage Supply Chains on Their Heads

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The Emerging Business of Supply Chain Risk Management

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For many organizations, globalization, outsourcing, and extended supply chains are effective strategies to increase efficiency and achieve economies of scale, however, these benefits are accompanied by the significantly increased risk to quality, safety, business continuity, reputation, and more.

Is Your Company Safe to Work With?

As reported by Forbes, there’s an emerging category of business – supply chain risk management – of which many companies aren’t yet aware.

For the largest companies, this is a jugular area – imagine the exposure of a large oil company or a large online retailer when a supplier they’ve contracted with makes a mistake or even causes an all-out disaster? (Think oil drilling contractor, for example.)

Risk Management Overview

For many organizations, globalization, outsourcing, and extended supply chains are effective strategies to increase efficiency and achieve economies of scale.

However, these benefits are accompanied by the significantly increased risk of quality, safety, business continuity, reputation, and more.

Identifying Risk in the Supply Chain

Organizations are always at risk for losses through cost volatility, supply disruption, non-compliance fines, and safety incidents that cause damage to their brand and reputation.

Knowing what’s at stake is the first step to understanding, measuring, and managing risk in your supply chain.

Supply Chain Safety

Among the highest priorities for companies across all industries, safety concerns are often magnified in chemical, oil and gas, construction, and manufacturing.

Workplace accidents can jeopardize contracts, result in fines, and cause significant damage to a company’s reputation.

Supply Chain Quality Control

Do your vendors and suppliers meet your standards for quality and consistency?

Customers are quick to react when they perceive a drop in quality; and, even the smallest product issues can be difficult to recover from.

Supply Chain Financial Challenges

Any disruption to the supply chain due to financial challenges has the potential to impact business continuity and, ultimately, your bottom line.

Taking a proactive approach to understanding supplier financial strength can prevent disruption and unnecessary costs.

Supply Chain Compliance

Are your contractors insured? Do they have the right type of insurance, the right limits?

Knowing this information will help you to manage insurance risk and avoid potentially costly litigation.

Supply Chain Reputation

Damage to a company’s brand or reputation can be long-lasting, extremely costly, and sometimes unrecoverable.

Committing to a supply chain risk management strategy can not only prevent brand damage but can also serve to foster new partnerships with organizations that share like values.

Supply Chain Sustainability

It’s no longer enough to assess risk within the traditional construct of a supply chain.

Organizations must look beyond and consider environmental impacts and corporate social responsibility, including adherence to labor laws and sustainable practices.

Read more at The Emerging Business of Supply Chain Risk Management

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