When handling the logistics of food warehousing and transport, it is essential that every aspect of the process is known, predictable and measurable. To fail to have control systems in place means that food service and food processing businesses risk contamination of the products they supply to their customers.
The HACCP accreditation system was originally developed for NASA to keep astronauts’ food safe when they had no access to alternative supplies and had to be 100% confident that their food was safe to consume.
Basically, without HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) food safety procedures were reactive. That is, standards and solutions were developed after a problem was identified. But of course, this meant that there could never be any certainty that each new batch of food was OK for human consumption – hardly a satisfactory situation for any food producer or restaurant.
By adopting the proactive HACCP procedures, food handlers have a standard set of procedures that involve measuring and recording each step in the food handling process, and then taking active action to correct (or discard) sub-standard products.
In terms of how this impacts of all participants in a food products supply chain, it means that every point of contact or handling of a food item is subject to standardised and measurable testing and action to correct any short-comings.
At State Transport, we operate our warehouses as an integral part of our customers’ supply chain and so we have in place active HACCP procedures so that we can guarantee that all food lines handled by us are a known quantity that our customers can always rely on.
The same applies to food lines that are transported from interstate or overseas. There are certain quarantine requirements that are in place to ensure that there is no contamination to local food producers from introduced pest and diseases. These form the standards and procedures of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) and are also an integral part of the operations of State Transport warehouses and the company’s logistics standards and procedures.