International Food Safety and Quality Network Discussion Forum forum

Speaker Name: Vladimir Surčinski Speaker Title: Dipl.Ing Company Name: IFSQN Speaker Photo: http://www.ifsqn.com...rs/vladimir.jpg Speaker Bio: Vladimir Surčinski is an international food safety expert with more than 15 years of experience in auditing, risk assessment, and capacity building across the global food supply chain. He is CEO and Vice President of ENFIT – International Association for Supply Chain Safety, and formerly served as Product Manager for Food Standards at Quality Austria. Throughout his career he has conducted over 1,000 audits and trained more than 10,000 professionals worldwide. Vladimir has been part of the IFSQN community for more than 10 years, where he has delivered both free and paid webinars to global audiences of over 30,000 participants. He is known for his energetic and modern approach, making complex food safety requirements practical and easy to implement. His philosophy is simple: every participant should finish a session with clear ideas they can apply in their company the very next day. Recognized for his reputation, enthusiasm, and hands-on training style, Vladimir continues to support the global food safety community through practical training, consulting, and thought leadership. Webinar Description: ISO 9001:2026 – Changes, Updates & Easy Implementation for the Food Industry is a practical 4-hour online training webinar designed for quality and food industry professionals preparing for the transition to the revised ISO 9001:2026 standar

Hi everyone, I'm Bojan - a software developer, not a food safety or compliance professional. I ended up here because of a project I've been working on and I'm hoping to learn from people who actually live this world daily. While researching the USDA Organic Integrity Database, I noticed that supplier certification verification is still done manually. As a developer, that felt like a solvable problem, so I built a tool called HandlerWatch. It's specifically focused on the USDA/NOP system, so most relevant if you deal with US organic certification or export into the US market. It syncs the full database nightly, monitors the suppliers you add, alerts you when a certification status changes, and logs every check with a timestamp into an immutable audit trail. I'm not from this industry and I don't know what I don't know, so I'd really appreciate some perspective and pointers: How do you currently handle organic supplier verification in practice? Spreadsheets, supplier management systems, periodic manual checks? For those working with other organic schemes (EU, JAS, etc.) - does the same manual verification pain exist there too? Any insight into how this actually works day to day - not just what the regulations say it should look like - would be hugely helpful. Looking forward to being part of this community. Bojan

Hello, The company I work for is based in the US but also has Canadian operations and a Canadian home office. I work at one of their food manufacturing facilities in Canada and we ship our product to our US; the US side of our business import it and sell it. We have a FFR with a DUNS# and a US Agent (through Registrar Corp) and have had no issues with shipping product to the US. Indeed, we undergo a VQIP (QIC) inspection annually to expedite our shipments to the US. My question is: can our US home office act as our US Agent? I have read that the US Agent cannot act as your importer or seller. Any comments / input on this from more qualified people is welcomed.

Hi all be good to get some opinions. OK we are in the process of building amenities in our new purpose built factory and I have a bit of an issue but may be you can put my mind at rest. Toilet location - we will have toilets located in the hand washing area, so you will come out of the factory, hang your coats up then enter the toilets. Then come out of the toliets, wash your hands again after the toilet then put coat on then enter the factory. I said I don't like this idea but they have said this is to meet ETI requirements so people are not clocking out as they will go through turnstiles to clock out which they want to avoid. I did say this way people will bypass the hand wash which to be fair the business come back and said this could happen anyway. I believe this has been agreed now and will be started to be built. What can I put in place to ensure i stay conformity to BRCGS V9. Thanks

Hi all, I run a small gluten-free, dairy-free confectionery manufacturer in Australia (around 7 production staff, two adjoining units). Our traceability has broken down at the handovers between process stages, and I'd like to know how other small manufacturers physically keep batch identity with WIP. Our process Layered bars: base + caramel or jam made day 1, set overnight, cut, stored on covered trolleys or in containers (sometimes frozen for up to 5 days), then moved to our second unit for chocolate enrobing, through a cooling tunnel, then onto new trays for packing Enrobed biscuit sandwiches: biscuits, fillings and marshmallow made as separate components (biscuits frozen for up to 6 months), assembled, enrobed next day, packed Paper batch sheets; inventory in Unleashed Where batch identity gets lost Labels on trolley covers are lost when the covers come off for enrobing After the cooling tunnel, product goes onto new trays with no ID Packers end up writing the packing date instead of the batch code The batch sheet and the product get separated, so records are completed after the fact What we've tried Permanent A6 labels on reusable trolley covers — wouldn't peel off, got stacked on top of each other Carcass-style hanging tags — flimsy and often not filled in My main question: what physically works for you? Does the batch sheet itself travel with the product, or just a label/tag, with the sheet kept at a fixed station? If the sheet travels, what do you carry it in — job tic

Hi all, I run a small gluten-free, dairy-free confectionery manufacturer in Australia (around 7 production staff, two adjoining units). Our batch traceability has broken down and I'm rebuilding it from scratch. I'd appreciate a sanity check on the proposed system before I write the procedures. Products Enrobed biscuit sandwiches — biscuits, jam/filling and marshmallow made as separate components, assembled, then chocolate enrobed and flow-wrapped Layered bars — base + caramel or jam, set overnight, cut, stored as WIP, then enrobed and packed Cookies — baked, packed into bulk cartons Inventory is managed in Unleashed using assemblies. Batch records are paper. Current process and where it breaks Batch sheets are printed the day before; I write the date on them because no one else does Recording ingredient lot numbers on batch sheets has lapsed (luckily we get one lot per ingredient at the moment so Unleashed tracks this, but were growing fast thus the urgency to fix this) Quantities are collected verbally at the end of the day and I enter everything into Unleashed the next day Multi-day products (bars) lose their identity at every handover: WIP trays sit on trolleys under plastic covers. When they go to the enrobing unit, the cover (and any label on it) comes off After the cooling tunnel, product goes onto new trays for packing with no batch ID Packers write the packing date instead of a batch code I then reconcile everything manually What we've tried Permanent-adhesive A6 labe

Hi all, I’m Charaf! I run Portmark, a one-person service helping small US food importers collect the supplier documents they need for their FSVP files. Mostly the boring stuff that becomes a problem when nobody owns it: chasing foreign suppliers for certificates, audit reports and lab results, translating what comes back, checking it’s actually for the right facility, and tracking when things expire. I don’t do the qualified individual work or make compliance decisions. I just handle the document collection underneath it. I ended up here after reading a lot of FDA warning letters. Not developing an FSVP at all was the most cited food violation in FDA’s FY2025 data, and a lot of the letters I read came down to small importers not having the records they needed from suppliers. Mostly here to learn how people actually handle supplier approval and verification in practice, and help with FSVP questions where I can. Happy to be corrected by people who’ve been doing this longer. Charaf

Hello all, For compressed air used in contact with food or food-contact surfaces, for particles, how many manufacturers are testing in the smallest range, 0.1 to 0.5 microns? Additionally, for compressed air that is used in contact with food or food-contact surfaces, what purity class did you assign for particles? ISO specifies that, for purity classes 1 and 2 for particles, three size ranges are assigned: 0.1-0.5 microns, 0.5-1.0 microns, and 1.0-5.0 microns. However, my understanding is that, unless you are using a laser particle counter (LPC) analysis, this smallest size range (0.1-0.5 microns) is not tested, and the LPC analysis is very expensive, around $8000 per analysis because it requires a technician to come out and perform the sample collection. That is why I ask how many are doing this--is LPC analysis really needed to say one is following ISO purity class 1 or 2 for particles? Another way of asking is, is it justifiable to claim a purity class 2 for particles and only test for 0.5-1.0 microns and 1.0-5.0 microns (and not the smallest size range)? We manufacture dietary supplements in the United States and have SQF and NSF GMP certifications. Matthew

Hello, My name is Constance, I work for a temperature controlled distribution center where we receive, store and ship Fresh and Frozen fish. We do not pack or repack product. I need some help with an issue I have with monitoring and verification of records. Do I need to send anyone who verifies records to complete a Certified HACCP Course? or can a company have a HACCP certified person that can train others on monitoring and verification of records? or should that HACCP certified individual, take a Train the Trainer course in order to train supervisors and hourly associates on monitoring and verification of records. If I have a HACCP Certified individual, and they train my team, am I compliant with 21CFR Part 123.10 and therefore allow them to verify and signoff on documents. Please help me.....

My name is Natashia I am originally for South Africa and are here in South Dakota for about 6 months now. I am planning a career is food safety, but don't have any knowledge, as in my pass I was in financials and admin work. I am eager to learn.

Outbreak Investigation of Shiga Toxin-producing E. coli & Salmonella: Sprouts (August 2026) | FDA Help me understand this one please. This is saying that the FDA has convinced the seed supplier to recall product. I'd always been under the assumption that most of our pathogens of concern were introduced through the soil, or unsanitary practices on the farm. This seems to imply that the pathogens where there when planted. I'm genuinely curious as to why/how it was determined to recall everything from the same seed lot.

It's Friday, yippee! Out of respect for TimG I've named this topic after him, as he started this sort of thing. It is a bit of fun so don't take offence folks. Found this in the local supermarket: I was going to add a comment but I thought I'd wait and see what people come up with. Have a good weekend all, Tony