Global standard of food safety
Zorba Foods was recently awarded the highest score possible in the global standard of food safety.
We maintained our AA grade from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) following a rigorous three-and-a-half-day audit carried at our Ebbw Vale site.
This was a very thorough and comprehensive assessment of Zorba’s policies and compliance against not only the BRC’s requirements but also the ‘bolt on’ standards linked to one of our supermarket customers, our success is even more impressive given that the audit was carried out whilst following Covid-19 secure guidelines.
The auditor gave specific praise on staff and management commitment, knowledge, engagement, and compliance with staff demonstrating excellent standard of hygiene and competency towards controls, tasks and awareness.
There were of course some minor issues (non-conformances) identified by the auditor during the many hours of scrutiny which have either already been rectified and/or about to be resolved.
Zorba’s Factor Technical Controller Neil Preece said: “The BRC standards are the benchmark and absolute requirement in order to allow Zorba to manufacture/sell products in to the major retailers. The scope of which is comprehensive, covering everything from raw material approval, food safety/hygiene compliance through to ethical practices and sustainability sourcing of the ingredients we use.
“The retailers/supermarkets we work with would not continue working with us if we didn’t possess this standard, so to once again achieve an AA is a fantastic achievement.
“It’s even more impressive given that we were audited during a global pandemic which meant we needed to follow and demonstrate guidelines around social distancing and PPE.
“In order to achieve such a score is testament to all the hard work and mileage put in by all the teams at Zorba throughout 2020/2021 and particularly those directly involved during this audit who demonstrated excellent knowledge, commitment and passion within their role.”
BRC is a globally recognized consumer protection organization used by more than 29,000 certified suppliers in over 130 countries, and BRC Food Safety audits are considered the “gold standard.”
Zorba previously had an AA* but these are only possible following an unannounced audit but due to Covid-19 these are not possible at the moment, so this was the highest possible score we could achieve.
