Food Safety Case Study

Project Date

2020

Risk Assessment 

Given the inherent nutritional properties of fresh produce itself, the risk associated with the category is relatively low where best agricultural practices and procedures are followed in the supply chain. In Total Produce, however, we are wholly committed to identifying potential risks both to food safety, but also food security as we strive to ensure 52 week supply of premium, safe fresh produce from across the globe. We maintain industry-leading technology to seamlessly track and trace product from grower to final consumer. Our operations comply with industry standards and our quality teams continually monitor and assess our fresh produce from arrival to customer dispatch. 

“In 2020 we are working to evolve our risk assessment work still further. With the aim of making sustainability risk assessment more accessible as part of our day-to-day procurement and supply chain considerations, we have set ourselves the challenge of developing a bespoke digital tool that will make it quick, simple and easy for our buying teams to factor in food safety, environmental and ethical implications in to future procurement decision making in real time.” 

To further ensure the integrity of our produce, we have put in place robust protocols and procedures across our operations. At the heart of this process lies risk assessment protocols centered on our procurement practices. Working with respected international organisations such as GlobalGAP, Sedex and AWS and local accreditation bodies is an important component in our risk mitigation strategy, however inevitably additional risk profiling is required as we strive to work with only the very best growers from the very best regions across the globe. 

To this end, the application of industry risk assessment models to identify and manage food safety and security issues across the wider fresh produce supply chain is established practice in our business. In fact, risk assessment tools are now central to our technical and operational day to day life. Traditionally, these tools focused exclusively on food safety concerns. Increasingly, however the scope of our risk management protocols has been extended to include environmental and social risk management.

Our risk assessment studies aim to identify future challenges and opportunities to enhance and improve the fresh produce supply chain. We have developed using publicly available data from respected and accredited global sources a risk assessment framework that looks at global trends that can have both a positive and negative affect on environmental and ethical risk. The framework of our risk assessment considers environmental factors such as climate change, weather events and sustainable resources (water, soil and air) and social factors that may affect supply such as political stability, worker conditions and human rights.

By studying areas that may be exposed to change our experienced teams can assess any potential impacts and, if needed consider mitigation plans to maximise the sustainability opportunity and minimise any damage to the environment, human health and local ecosystems. Collaboration with organisations like Sedex and best practice climate tools such as Aqueduct from the World Resources Institute has been key to our risk assessment studies and it has helped us develop a strong focused strategy that ensures the business remains resilient now and for future challenges. 

In 2020 we are working to evolve our risk assessment work still further. With the aim of making sustainability risk assessment more accessible as part of our day-to-day procurement and supply chain considerations, we have set ourselves the challenge of developing a bespoke digital tool that will make it quick, simple and easy for our buying teams to factor in food safety, environmental and ethical implications in to future procurement decision making in real time. We expect completion of this project by the end of the year. 

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