A national food manufacturer and distributor is conducting a national recall of frozen berries, with a warning of Hepatitus A contamination. The company has had to enact its recall and crisis management procedures to manage this food safety incident.
Up to 18 people have been reported to have contracted Hepatitus A from the product. Concerned consumers should contact Patties Foods.
Contact Correct Food Systems to ensure you have recall and crisis management procedures in place to  ensure you manage any food safety incident that may occur, in a timely responsive manner.

Suppliers providing food and grocery products for either company owned brands or fresh proprietary lines, in Metcash Trading retail outlets now need to comply with the requirements of  the Metcash Supplier Standard for Food V1a.
The scope of the Metcash Approved Supplier Program will be to ensure that each supplier’s site / branch that manufactures for, and/or distributes goods to Metcash must have:

• Current certificate from a 3rd party food safety certification scheme (or other “approved vendor quality assurance” programs) according to the Metcash Supplier Certification Standard.
  
• Adequate Public and Products Liability Insurance coverage (at least $10M, but preferably $20M) which must be current at all times whilst supplying Metcash.
  
• Up to date & adequate recall / withdrawal / complaints processes & contacts for business activities.
  
• Adequate change control processes to ensure that any changes to the quality of the products supplied, are communicated in a timely manner to the Metcash Food Safety Department.
  
• Current specifications for all Metcash owned branded lines as well as any fresh proprietary lines with an intended further use in any retail fresh service department (deli, bakery, meat, produce).
  

If you supply food to Metcash independant retail stores, please contact Metcash to ensure compliance to the new standard which was launced in November 2014.  qafresh@metcash.com  
A copy of the standard is available here
A copy of the Matrix Appendix 1 is available here

Correct Food Systems can assist your business to meet the requirements and ensure your business is a certified Metcash Approved Supplier.

BRC version 7 was released early January 2015.
The standard is available as a free download from http://www.brcglobalstandards.com
This GFSI standard is auditable in July 2015
There have been significant changes to the standard from version 6
Some of  the more notable changes are:

• Changes to the  BRC  audit Grading system. Now AA, A, B, C,D Sites with less than 5 minor non-conformities can achieve AA, A = 6- 10 minors, D=25- 30 minors, or 1 major 17-24 minors, 2 majors 11-16 minors
• Introduced 4 additional voluntary modules – can be added onto the  BRC audit. Traded Goods, food for animal feed, chain of custody , food defenc
• Two new “Fundamentals” added: Labelling and pack  control and Supplier Management
• New requirement to risk assess ambient high care products to consider cross contamination and  pathogen survival in Ambient high care products
• Increase agent and broker accountability, in traceability

Those audited to BRC are advised to read the support freely provided by BRC and adjust their food safety management system ready for the implementation and certification to this standard.

Correct Food Systems can assist you to integrate these changes into your system or perform an internal audit in readiness for BRC certification audits in July 2015