Food recall systems

Why is there a need for a food recall system?
Every day the food industry supplies millions of food items to consumers around the world. There are occasions when mistakes occur and products have to be withdrawn from the marketplace. These mistakes usually may cause harm to consumers, upon consumption.

Who needs a food recall system?
Wholesale suppliers, manufacturers, and importers need a food recall system. Reasons for a food recall could include contamination of food by food poisoning bacteria, or by chemicals or foreign matter that could harm someone when the food is eaten. That is why we need a effective and efficient recall system.

If you are a wholesale supplier,a manufactureror an importer of food you must have a food recall system in place that you can use to retrieve food from the market place if you find that the food may be contaminated in some way and be dangerous to eat after you have sent it on to other food businesses or your customers. This requirement is set out in Standard 3.2.2 Food Safety Practices and General Requirements. Your recall system must be set out in written form and you must follow the written procedures when recalling unsafe food.

However if you are a food service or retail business such as a supermarket, a restaurant or a takeaway shop, you do not need a recall system unless you are also a wholesale supplier, or manufacturer or importer. The wholesale suppliers, manufacturers or importers are responsible for the recall of food sold at supermarkets, and food served at restaurants and takeaways is normally eaten immediately, so a recall is impractical.

However, food service and retail businesses may still have to play a part in a recall from another business. In this case certain specific requirements apply to the identification, storage and disposal of the recalled food and recalled items returned by customers. The section of this fact sheet headed ' Disposing of recalled, unsafe, unsuitable or returned food' includes further information on these requirements.

Sometimes food businesses decide to retrieve food for reasons that are unrelated to the safety of the food, for example, packaging or labelling faults, and they may choose to use their recall system to do this, although there is no legal obligation for them to do so.

The purpose of a recall system
A recall system must:
1. stop any further distribution and sale of the unsafe product as soon as possible.
2. tell the public and the relevant authorities about the problem.
3. effectively retrieve the unsafe food.

Key features of a recall system
1. the purpose of a recall and a list of the members of the recall team and their responsibilities;
2. a series of steps to guide decisions on the risks associated with the potentially unsafe product;
3. a series of steps to guide decisions on the extent of the recall - for example, has the product already reached the retail level and been sold to consumers;
4. a list of the authorities that are to be told about the recall
5. records of where the product has been sent, for example to wholesalers, distribution centres, supermarkets, hospitals and restaurants;
6. records of information that will help other businesses and the public to identify and return the food you are recalling, for example, the name of the product, the batch code, the date mark, the reason for the recall, where to return the food and who to contact for more information;
7. arrangements for retrieving food returned to supermarkets or other outlets; and
arrangements to assess the amount of recalled food that has been returned and how much of it is still in the market place.

References: http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/newsroom/factsheets/foodsafetyfactsheets/foodrecallsystemsfor104.cfm
http://www.rssl.com/OurServices/Training/Food/RecallandTraceabilitySystems.htm