Storage of tomatoes in metal drums outside?

Hello

Please could you let me know your view on storage Tomatoes in Metal drums outside the warehousing area?

As in, physically outdoors?

I know a number of sites that do this, but I'm yet to see an argument that suggests it's good practice. There are various potential considerations, e.g. food defence (accessibility of your raw material), pest access (even if they can't physically get into metal drums, you don't want to be bringing these into your factory if e.g. they're covered in bird droppings), general exposure to environmental contaminants etc.

FWIW I've also seen it cause a number of problems of a non-safety sort and have lost count of the number of customer complaints I've rejected due to issues caused by this, for example:

• Product quality of ambient-stable materials deteriorating due to excessive heat and direct sun in summer.
• Product texture damaged by cold temperatures in winter.
• Microbiological spoilage of products due to the assumption that the UK is cold(ish) in winter so the outdoors is a suitable equivalent to a chiller (yep, really...).
• Other quality issues caused by many repeated cooling/heating cycles.

Thanks guys. 

i will be clearer - there is a storage company but because they don't have place in they actual warehouse they have offered that they will store product outside... Also that company doesn't have any HACCP plan or anything. What would you ask them for if you were to use ?

Honestly, I'd be looking for other third party storage providers, and in the short term I'd be asking your current warehouse to move a non-food product outside so yours can go inside.

Many years ago I had a third party warehouse do this with our products without telling us - they moved some of our product into a covered area without walls (semi-outside) and some outside adjacent to the warehouse walls basically outside, on the basis that it's in drums and IBCs so it'll be ok. Birds absolutely loved sitting on the guttering an in the rafters. Lots of our stock got covered in pigeon droppings. Ended up being quite costly as customers wouldn't accept finished products and I wouldn't let any of the raw materials into our factory.

It sounds like this might be a general-purpose warehouse? They're sometimes slightly cheaper, but there are often compromises. It might be worth seeking out someone with BRC Storage & Distribution.

Find another location-period

This just rings of issue upon issue

Unless, of course your company is happy to lose the $$$ this product is worth

Thanks guys. 

 

i will be clearer - there is a storage company but because they don't have place in they actual warehouse they have offered that they will store product outside... Also that company doesn't have any HACCP plan or anything. What would you ask them for if you were to use ?

I wouldn't accept this option if offered the choice for any of the reasons already mentioned.

Thanks guys. 

 

i will be clearer - there is a storage company but because they don't have place in they actual warehouse they have offered that they will store product outside... Also that company doesn't have any HACCP plan or anything. What would you ask them for if you were to use ?

That seems a little unreasonable of them don't you think? They're offering to charge you for storage services, but not actually store the product! Anyone could feasibly stack a bunch of drums outside, but that doesn't make someone a "storage solution". It'd be like if I sold raincoats without hoods!

There should be other storage warehouses -somewhere- in your area, even if they're a bit longer of a truck drive. By storing drums outside, the risk is too high. You're nearly guaranteeing losses in damaged product. Better to spend more in shipping charges to send it to a warehouse further away.

If they're contracted for mere storage of your goods, there could be a need that you list them in your GFSI scope as a sub-site.  And the gap for them to have no HACCP protocols for warehousing creates a pretty high risk if you bring the product back into your plant prior to distribution or rework.

If the storage facility becomes your distributor, I would imagine it becomes unacceptable for them to not be GFSI registered themselves.

Thank you all, I have rejected this offer and found another storage place.