Why you need Food Safety ERP Functionality

Introduction

Food and beverage businesses have many priorities that they must attend to in order to be successful. These priorities include delivering high-quality products, ensuring customer satisfaction, making strides toward sustainability, and maintaining a healthy bottom line. 

However, one critically important goal that often goes overlooked is implementing uncompromising food safety practices. Food safety is of paramount importance because it is not only a legal requirement, but also because it directly impacts the health and well-being of consumers.

An estimated 600 million people fall ill each year from eating contaminated food. This highlights the importance of food safety in the industry and the need for companies to take it seriously. Consumers also place great value on being able to trust the brands that they support in this regard. Brands that prioritize food safety are more likely to be trusted by consumers and will be more successful in the long run.

It's not easy to optimize your food safety strategy because there are so many things to think about and actions to take to reduce health hazards throughout your supply chain. The process involves many different departments, including procurement, production, logistics, and quality control. This can be a daunting task, but utilizing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can provide the necessary tools to efficiently manage and automate these processes.

ERP software can provide food and beverage businesses with the necessary tools to manage and automate processes related to food safety. For example, it can be used to track and trace products throughout the supply chain, ensuring that all products are safe and of high quality. It can also be used to manage and monitor food safety compliance and regulations, as well as to plan and schedule production and logistics activities.

In conclusion, food safety is a critical aspect of any food and beverage business and should be given the same level of attention as other business priorities. Implementing uncompromising food safety practices can be challenging, but utilizing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software can provide the necessary tools to efficiently manage and automate these processes, thus ensuring the safety of products and the satisfaction of consumers.

1. Facilitated Compliance with Regulations.

Regulations for food safety are becoming stricter in many areas of the world. In the U.S., the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 is being updated as part of the New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative, which includes the new Food Traceability Final Rule. Meanwhile, the European Union's Regulation (EU) 2019/1381 is also emphasizing food safety across most of Europe. 

Failing to comply with these laws can result in heavy fines, the closure of a business, damage to reputation, and a loss of future sales. To prevent these negative outcomes, it's important to ensure compliance and show diligence to enforcement agencies, which can be aided by using an ERP system for food safety.

ERP’s Food Safety Features

• Complete bidirectional traceability is one of the most beneficial features of a food ERP because compliance depends so much on the capability to track raw materials and finished goods back to suppliers and forward to customers. The lot and subplot management capabilities of these systems offer a thorough record of the movement of your items across the supply chain.

• Additionally, the labeling tools provided by advanced solutions aid in ensuring that the product packaging contains all mandatory health and safety statements. Manufacturers can track and preserve all required regulatory documents online due to compliance document management functionalities.

2. Faster Contamination Isolation

Speeding up the identification and removal of contaminated products can decrease the likelihood of consumer harm. In some situations, this can even prevent a food safety crisis from happening. This is especially crucial in a world where outbreaks of illnesses such as salmonella, E. coli, and listeria can lead to negative publicity for affected brands. 

By quickly identifying the source of any contamination, the chances of preventing affected products from being distributed and sold increase. Time is critical in these scenarios, so utilizing modern ERP systems can facilitate and quicken the process.

Features of Food Safety in ERP

• The food and beverage ERP software's traceability tools are just as important for this as they are for following compliance rules. Functionalities for lot and sublot management can record important item information and make it easier to track contaminations upstream to the impacted items as well as downstream to their source.

• Advanced lot attributes tools allow users to design their own custom criteria for higher precision, while quality control features enable you to assign important safety checks to specific team members and automate process steps for faster resolution. You can track using standardized means of identification with the help of  licence plating and serial shipping container code (SSCC) features.

3. More Effective Allergen Segregation and Declaration 

• Approximately 220 million people worldwide suffer from food allergies, and over half of adults develop at least one food allergy after the age of 18. These statistics highlight how common food allergies are and how many people may be at risk of negative health effects due to a lack of allergen segregation or labeling. 

• According to the USDA, 90% of food allergic reactions are caused by common allergens such as wheat, shellfish, eggs, fish, peanuts, tree nuts, milk, and soybeans. In the UK, celery, mustard, and sesame are also included in this list. If your organization uses any of these ingredients, you can benefit from the allergen control features provided by food ERP systems.

Features of ERP's Food Safety

• To ensure the safety of consumers with allergies, it is important to properly separate ingredients that may cause allergic reactions from those that are safe to consume. Food ERP software can help manufacturers track and indicate the presence of allergens in their products, allowing all employees and partners to handle them with caution to prevent accidental exposure. 

• The software also includes tools for managing detailed information about allergens and making it easy to find the information needed. Additionally, the software provides labeling options to inform consumers about any allergen concerns related to the final products.

4. Full Recall Preparedness

• The cost of a food product recall is commonly estimated to be $10 million, but this figure does not take into account all of the potential negative effects on a business. Damage to a company's reputation, decreased demand for products, and additional expenses for communication and legal issues are all factors that can arise during a recall. In order to minimize the likelihood of a recall and make the process less difficult if one does occur, it is recommended to use an ERP system.

Features for Food Safety in ERP

• An industry-specific ERP solution, such as a Food ERP, can greatly simplify the tasks involved in planning and executing a product recall. This is because such a solution is tailored to the specific needs of the food and beverage industry, which allows for more efficient and effective management of the recall process. 

• With just a few simple clicks, users can initiate the recall process, minimizing the potential losses that can occur as a result.

In addition to its recall management capabilities, Food ERP also provides tools for proactively preventing recalls from becoming necessary. For example, it includes inspection status tools that can help ensure that products meet all applicable standards before they are dispatched. This can help to identify and address issues before they become a problem. 

• Additionally, the system includes functionalities for tracking and addressing customer complaints, which can help to quickly resolve any issues that do arise. Overall, the use of an industry-specific ERP solution like  Food ERP can help organizations in the food and beverage industry to improve their overall product quality and safety, while also reducing the risk of costly recalls.