6 replies to this topic

[GoldFishPanic]

I am very new to writing corrective action reports and I keep running into problems with what to put down for preventive actions and verification procedures on events that seem randomized.

 

My current CAR involves rejecting a single case of raw frozen material that included obviously rancid material out of a shipment of 50+ cases of mechanically separated meat byproduct. They were received completely frozen and all other cases from that lot and shipment looked and smelled "normal". I submitted a SCAR report to the supplier. What else can I do? Management is not giving any helpful guidance.

 

How do I "prevent" one off issues like this? How do I verify that the prevention works? I am at a loss.

[G M]

How was the unacceptable material detected? 

 

If your receiving or other procedures caught the problem before it was used, I'm not sure its a situation needing a formal corrective action.

[kconf]

That's an interesting scenario. Let's break it down.

 

You obviously cannot prevent a vendor from sending to you an off product. Let your supplier complete their investigation (SCAR). Your preventing action plan should be based on their (or maybe partially yours) root cause. 

 

Your ultimate goal is to only use materials that are in compliance with food safety and quality. How will you ensure that you will maintain it? 

[GoldFishPanic]

How was the unacceptable material detected? 

 

If your receiving or other procedures caught the problem before it was used, I'm not sure its a situation needing a formal corrective action.

We cut each frozen 40 lb block into 1.5" slices with a bone saw prior to batch production. The saw operator noticed a fowl smell midway through that block and notified me immediately. The block didn't smell bad until he cut through a dark grey/green patch that we found mid block. This material is mechanically separated meat from scrap materials so there is always variation from pink-peach-brown-tan depending on content.  We ended up doing a full tear down and sanitation and inspected each block cut prior to and after the bad one. 

 

The supplier was not concerned and blew us off about the safety of their product.

[GoldFishPanic]

The supplier has blown off our concerns and refuses to fill out the any of the SCARs I have sent them, claiming that it is a natural product and that it is all normal. Management has just finally decided to no longer work with that supplier but I till have to have all of our paperwork completed. It has been one thing after another with this supplier since February and I have a stack of odd CARs resulting from their products. I'm ready to pull my hair out from lack of management support. What I would do in a situation is often a far cry from what the they want to do. I think our root causes at this point is gross negligence on the supplier's side and willful ignorance on Management's side.

 

All product involved with this incident was eventually destroyed because of lab samples sent off to test TBA and Peroxide values. Management couldn't argue against those. I don't know If the labs would count on the CAR because they were part of our randomized product testing program.

 

That's an interesting scenario. Let's break it down.

 

You obviously cannot prevent a vendor from sending to you an off product. Let your supplier complete their investigation (SCAR). Your preventing action plan should be based on their (or maybe partially yours) root cause. 

 

Your ultimate goal is to only use materials that are in compliance with food safety and quality. How will you ensure that you will maintain it? 

[Tony-C]

The supplier has blown off our concerns and refuses to fill out the any of the SCARs I have sent them, claiming that it is a natural product and that it is all normal. Management has just finally decided to no longer work with that supplier but I till have to have all of our paperwork completed. It has been one thing after another with this supplier since February and I have a stack of odd CARs resulting from their products. I'm ready to pull my hair out from lack of management support. What I would do in a situation is often a far cry from what the they want to do. I think our root causes at this point is gross negligence on the supplier's side and willful ignorance on Management's side.

 

All product involved with this incident was eventually destroyed because of lab samples sent off to test TBA and Peroxide values. Management couldn't argue against those. I don't know If the labs would count on the CAR because they were part of our randomized product testing program.

 

Hi GoldFishPanic,

 

As you are delisting the supplier you can close out whatever CARs are outstanding from them. File their responses with the CARs and sign off the final corrective action as the management decision to stop using the supplier.

 

Being proactive and with regards to Preventative Action, perhaps you should also revisit your supplier approval and monitoring procedures.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[jfrey123]

I don't think you need a preventative action in this case, as it was a one off bad case and it was caught with your inherent program controls (worker training, tear down and sanitization due to bad product, etc.)  Now if you were documenting that bad cases were coming in left and right and not being caught until finished packaging had been complete, that's the type of scenario where obviously something is happening requiring a possible program change.

 

You can't 100% prevent a bad ingredient shipment from a supplier.  What you can do is document the corrective actions you take when it is discovered, and check your SOP's to ensure you have a robust system for discovering such issues.  It's unfortunate that the supplier refused to acknowledge your complaint, as a bad case of meat leads me to believe some temperature or sanitation issues could be worth looking at on their side.  In this circumstance, I'm happy to see that your management was supportive and led the charge to delist the supplier for lack of cooperation and response.