Traceability of Milk Products:
Introduction:
Traceability can be defined as the ability to trace and follow food producing animals/ animal products. This allows companies to know the history and background of a specific product, that is being produced or needed for product, or the process itself of a product and the needed steps for the production of the product, in this case milk products, more importantly cheese. Also taking into account, the observation and association of the environmental conditions (temperature) needed during the processing/production of cheese. To make sure that the information that is needed for this production may be used further along the supply chain from entry or raw good to departing of finished product e.g. the ordering process of specific ingredients that are needed in the plant and machines used during production of the food product. It is important to keep track and hold of this information because with it, it can be used for reporting purposes i.e. if there is a fault in the production line or if there s contamination of the product or a forced reason for the recalling of a product before reaching the consumers.
According to Article 18 of the Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 General Principle and Requirements of food law, experience has shown that the functioning of the internal mark in food or animal feed can be at risk of contamination or to be deemed unfit for consumers can lead to it being impossible to trace. Traceability does not ensure the safety of unsafe products getting to consumers but supplies companies with enough information to be able to form a quick and precise recall of the product unfit for human consumption. Therefore, it is vital to launch a comprehensive system of traceability amongst food and feed businesses so that the right product withdrawals can be carried out or the right information is given to customers or managers in charge/ control officials. By doing so, it is avoiding the potential for unnecessary and unwanted wider disruption in the event of food safety problems.
As shown in Recital 29: it is a vital requirement to be able to guarantee that a food company, even including the suppliers of ingredients or machinery needs, have been supplied from the production chain and that traceability is available to viewing throughout each stage of production, processing and distribution of the product. By keeping track of the traceability of their supplies food/ feed production companies will have in place, systems and processes/ techniques so that it is possible to identify the fault in the line of supplyment from other companies e.g. in the productions of cheese, if the cheese is contaminated, the company should be able to link the problem back to suppliers of ingredients that went in to the cheese such as the farmers who supplied the milk. Also, to enable a food products traceability, it is mandatory for the company to effectively label the product before it is sold to the customers or placed on the marked/ shelves of shops. With recent food scares (recall of cheese from the cheese hub due to possible presence of Listeria Monocytogenes and SuperValu recalls of Wicklow Farmhouse cheese; two batches of blue cheese due to possible contamination of Listeria Monocytogenes to name a few), this tells us that traceability does not guarantee food to be safe but does identify the origin of the product which by doing so, protects the customer by helping with the removal of the food from the market and also provides the customer with accurate and precise information about the products removal.
Traceability Objectives:
Traceability has numerous of objectives and not just food safety. These include the ability to be able to fair trade amongst the operators and suppliers while also taking into account of the reliability of mandatory information which is made available to consumers i.e. address and company name on packaging. With traceability, it allows risk assessments to be commenced by controlled authorities thus provides an unnecessary wider disruption of trace is able to be avoided. The traceability requirement relies on the approaches of the saying One step back and One step forward meaning to keep track of the product thinking a step ahead and keeping track of the production already achieved. By doing so, this implies to food business operators that:
Will have put in place a system that is able to identify the exact customer/ consumer of their products.
However, the traceability rules of the regulation do not have as much of an effect on countries outside of the European Union. This requirement covers all phases if the production, processing and distribution in the European Union, starting from the importer of the produce as far up to the retail level of the food company. Exporters in trading partner countries, according to regulations, are not legally obligated to obey the traceability requirement that is in place within the European Union. It is a common custom among some European food companies to demand for the trading partners to obey and cohort to the traceability requirements and even beyond the One step back and One step forward code.
A food company/ business operator should be able to recognize any person from whom or where it obtains its food/ raw materials for production of cheese or any other milk product (yoghurt, whey protein supplements). This person who supplies the food company can be an individual (mushroom supplier) or a legal person.
Types of Traceability:
There are two different types of traceability: Internal traceability and External traceability
Internal traceability:
Internal traceability refers to that procedures must be upheld within an organization to connect identities of raw materials to those of the finished produce i.e. cheese. When one ingredient is combined with other ingredients, and processed, reconfigured or repacked, the new produce must have its own UPI (Unique Product Identifier). The connection is a necessity that must be upheld between this new product and its original materials/ ingredients that were used in the process (such as breading, marinades, seasoning, salt, enzymes, batters and packaging materials), this allows the food companies to keep traceability of the product. A label which contains the lot number of the traceable input product should stay on the packaging of the product until that entire traceable item is no longer available. This principle applies even when the traceable item is part of a larger packaging order i.e. the pallets which milk products could be so
References:
Regattieri, A., Gamberi, M. and Manzini, R. (2007). Traceability of food products: General framework and experimental evidence. Journal of Food Engineering, 81(2), pp.347-356.
Charlebois, S. and Haratifar, S. (2015). The perceived value of dairy product traceability in modern society: An exploratory study. Journal of Dairy Science, 98(5), pp.3514-3525.
Fsai.ie. (2017). Recall of Cheese Cut by The Cheese Hub Due to Possible Presence of Listeria monocytogenes. [online] Available at: https://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/food_alerts/recall_the_cheese_hub.html [Accessed 8 Nov. 2017].
Regattieri, A., Gamberi, M. and Manzini, R. (2007). Traceability of food products: General framework and experimental evidence. Journal of Food Engineering, 81(2), pp.347-356.
Charlebois, S. and Haratifar, S. (2015). The perceived value of dairy product traceability in modern society: An exploratory study. Journal of Dairy Science, 98(5), pp.3514-3525.
EC General Food Law Regulation 178/2002: Guidance Notes on the Food Safety (Northern Ireland) Order 1991 (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004 and the General Food Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004.
ISO 8402:1994.
Fda.gov. (2017). Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts. [online] Available at: https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls/ [Accessed 10 Nov. 2017].
Fsai.ie. (2017). Food Alerts | News Centre | The Food Safety Authority of Ireland. [online] Available at: https://www.fsai.ie/news_centre/food_alerts.html [Accessed 10 Nov. 2017].