Segregation to produce organic and conventional products

Dear All,

We have been producing organic bakery products only for last 10 years but due to higher cost implications we have decided to also produce conventional products(non organic). We are small premises and segregation of both type of ingredients from goods-in to packaging is a big challenge for us.
We have decided to adopt
1: Color coding for all conventional ingredients throughout the processing
2: Adopt production sequence (organic products first then conventional)
3: Dedciated paperwork for both type pf production to avoid any mix up due to similar kind of names of ingredients

Have any one have any experience of such situation.

please share your thoughts and experiences.

Regards

Martinbue

dear Martinblue,

Your descriptions seems fime to me.
Please make sure, your staff is trained in this new system and the reason why.

Good luck and succes with implementation.

Hi Martinbue

Some years ago, we were processing both organic and conventional food products in the same process environment. We did exactly as you suggest - concentrate on the organic production first, and once completed,move onto conventional food products.

A couple ofthings come to mind.

• Ensure the cleaning procedures are very well documented, ensure staff are well advised of what is expected, and back-up the cleaning procedures with some form of verification as proof that the cleaning was completed as required
• Make sure the paper trail is well thought out to track the use of organic ingredients throughout the process. I’m not familiar with the baking industry, but is it possible to source most / all of the conventional ingredients from only one or two suppliers? A uniform look and feel of conventional ingredients will make it easier to establish a routine in their distribution and use throughout your bakery. It will also lead to more readily identifiable breaches should the wrong ingredient be used at any stage. If you are purchasing from one supplier, they may be happy to shrink wrap your supplies with a different colour plastic from the usual clear.

Good luck

To Martinblue:

a) The segregation of specific equipment / utensils as well as the cleaning process.

b) Any rewok and the storage area?

Hi Martinbue,

My company processes both organic and conventional hemp seed products. At our facility we make oil, shelled seed, and protein powder. I just completed my organic audit yesterday and here is a few things I can share. Note our process is ready to eat.

1) We have color codes utensil such as brushes, scooper, pails. (yellow for conventional / green for organic, white for sanitation). We have blue boards up in our processing area where organic tools and conventional tools are stored and kept.

2) We use color coded tags to identify products up in the racking. We have designated racks in the cooler. If space are limited store organic above conv. Most time you will find your out of space, but as long as the totes are seal up in storage the audit will be okay with it.

4) Since our process is a dry product, most of our cleaning is dry. We recently purchase a steam cleaner to handle organic. We run organic batch first then conventional. In terms of documentation, our processing forms has a section on top where the operator checks off they are running organic or conventional.

Richard.

Hi guys,
Thanks for everyone's inputs.

Steve_T: I like the idea of getting supplier to shrink wrap pallet with different colored film for clear identification.

regards

Martinblue

The different color shrink wrap program works great! We also use in-house for quarantine, QC Hold, R&D Test, etc. There is a limited number of colors though. Currently we are maxed out.