The Answer to the Food Manufacturing Industry’s Worries

As a food and beverage manufacturer, the safety of your products should be your top concern and priority. While there are numerous regulations in place to ensure the safety of food and beverage products, food still gets contaminated, leading to costly product recalls along with process and facility overhauls. Earlier this month, we discussed how preparation is key to surviving product recalls and contamination issues. This week, we would like to expand on the idea of preparation and show you ways you can prevent contamination from the start.

Food ERP software is crucial in preventing, preparing for, and responding to product recalls and food contamination issues. Designed specifically with food manufacturers in mind, food ERP software contains advanced tracking and reporting capabilities that make it easy for manufacturers to keep a close eye on every step in the manufacturing process. Here are 3 ways food manufacturing companies can use food ERP to increase food safety:

1. The Prevention of Food Contamination
   Your main plan of attack when it comes to product recalls and food contamination should be prevention. If you can prevent contamination from occurring, then you do not have to spend extra time and money on food contamination problems. Food ERP software prevents contamination from the start by rigorously enforcing inspections to assure item conformance to required product characteristics and expected results. The inspections are conducted at key event points, such as during receiving or any other important stage in the production cycle. Any items that fail inspection are automatically quarantined or designated for further inspection or disposal to ensure they do not reach the hands of your customers.
2. Adequate Tracking in Preparation of Food Recalls
   While food ERP software contains specialized inspection capabilities to weed out products that fail to measure up to item conformance, it does not fully eliminate the chance of product recalls from occurring. Food ERP software does, however, help you create and maintain an effective plan of action should a recall occur sometime in the future. The system automatically keeps track of manufacturing processes and stores important information related to product ingredients and creation.Should a recall occur, you will have all the information you need to determine where the contamination occurred, how to fix the problem, and how to prevent it from occurring again in the future.
3. Cuts Response Time in Half
   When you are using food ERP software to manage your food manufacturing operation, you are better prepared to react quickly and address the problem before it causes more damage to your business. Because all of the information is readily available, you do not have to go digging around to find the facts. They are already there, allowing you to respond to problems in the supply chain immediately.You can also quickly determine which areas and processes need improvement so as to prevent contamination in the future.

Preventing contamination from the start can help you protect your business’ reputation, its customers and your end profit. IWI Consulting offers food industry ERP software to help food manufacturing companies adequately prepare for recall instances and any other related food and beverage “emergencies”. You can learn more about our food industry ERP software by visiting our Sage EM (formerly known as Sage X3) page.

Download our whitepaper, “Managing Product Recalls to Reduce Risk and Minimize Costs,” for further information on improving your company’s response in preparation of a recall.  

Our small and dedicated team specializes in helping small-to-medium size Canadian businesses and non-profits select and adapt Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resource Management (HRMS) and IT services. With IWI’s 15 years in business and 100 plus years of combined experience, IWI has helped hundreds of food manufacturing, distribution, and financial service companies gain efficiency, grow, and lower their operating costs.

With the unique combination of industry knowledge and diverse technology expertise, IWI provides cost-effective solutions to help clients gain a competitive edge. As a Sage business partner, servicing the Greater Toronto Area, we support evaluation and implementation of operations and finance systems to optimize technology, ensuring high return on investment with a quick and painless transition to new software.