This year’s SQF Unites Conference was held in New Orleans. Over 600 participants gathered to learn and connect with colleagues and industry experts. The conference agenda included discussions about SQF Edition 10. The SQF Town Hall event discussed the launch of CMX1, the new SQF Assessment database platform and a new credential for SQF practitioners.…
Updated Hazard Guide to help PCQIs with development of Food Safety Plans
On January 30, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) published an updated Hazard Guide as part of a revised draft guidance for the implementation of the PCHF rule under FSMA. The significant updates summarize comments that the US FDA received on the 2016 draft guidance for the Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive…
Qualitative Sensory Tests for the Evaluation of Complex Food Products
Tastelweb© software has recently introduced a sixth test to its portfolio of sensory tests: the qualitative profile test. What is the qualitative profile test? This sensory test is used to assess the olfactory quality of aromatic food or beverages. Aroma blends and fragrant mixtures can be hard to describe. Read on to learn how to…
What are HACCP and PCQI? Why both are important for your business
In the last 15 years, food safety regulations have become stricter. As a result, food and beverage companies now invest in food safety training and HACCP/PCQI certification courses to meet their legal responsibility. This has resulted in safer supply chains. Due to the complicated nature of food safety regulations, registering for the right food safety…
Recent Salmonella Outbreak, Ensuring Cantaloupe Safety
The recent cantaloupe Salmonella outbreak has dominated headlines in the food industry over the past month, prompting concerns about cantaloupe safety and pre-cut cantaloupe purchased for the holiday season. Furthermore, food safety consultants know well that ensuring produce safety is challenging due to the nature of raw and perishable agricultural products. Consequently, ensuring cantaloupe safety…
5 Key tips for running effective PCP plans to sell in Canada
Before the year 2012, Canadian Food Regulations consisted of 14 separate sets of Acts and Regulations. Each food commodity had its set of rules which would sometimes be inconsistent across products. To modernize food safety regulations in Canada, the Safe Food for Canadians Act was passed into law in 2012 and improved Safe Food for…
Produce Safety from Farm to Table. Avoid Salmonella and Listeria Recalls
Food safety concerns in the produce industry have been in the news thanks to the Netflix documentary – Poison. People started to realize that so many points of cross-contamination can happen from farm to table. If you get the chance to review the food safety recall published by the FDA or CFIA, you will notice…
Digital SQF implementations – Small food processor case study Part 1
If you keep informed on tech news, you know that digitized food safety systems have been very popular in the past few years. We have blogged on this topic before. Small businesses with paper based HACCP and SQF systems can easily commit to digital SQF implementations. To be successful, start with the right tools. Introducing…
Introduction to the Pivot Sensory Test (an exclusivity of Tastelweb©)
Origins of The Pivot© Profile Test The Pivot© Profile test is a novel sensory methodology created by Dr. Thuillier (CEO of ABT Informatique) in 2015. Using free comments, this method compares the sensory profile of coded samples to a pivot sample in a series of paired comparison tests. Panellists indicate whether a coded sample is…
10 Tips and Best Practices to Develop a Food Safety Plan for SQF 9 Food Manufacturing. Introducing the new SQF Addendum (July 2023)
Food businesses and storage warehouses seek Food Safety Certification to show compliance with regulations, to sell their products to large retailers, to export, to align with their supply chain requirements and to guarantee safe food to their customers. In North America, in Europe and in the South Pacific, Safe Quality Food (SQF) is a certification…