Quality Counts
To stand behind their brands, retailers need to have complete confidence in product quality. Therefore, they must make sure not only that they have the proper quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) measures in place when developing store brand products, but also that their supplier partners have the same.
Private Label ⇨ Store Brands turned to two QA/QC experts — Sharrann Simmons, director of marketing with Chicago-based Silliker Inc., and Gina Nicholson, R.S., global client director of retail food services with NSF International, Ann Arbor, Mich. — to learn how both retailers and suppliers could improve when it comes to QA/QC for private brand products.
Private Label ⇨ Store Brands: In your view, where do retailers most need to improve when it comes to store brand-related QA/QC efforts?
Sharrann Simmons: The one program that can dramatically improve the quality of store brand products is an effective supplier monitoring program to ensure all suppliers of store brand products are fully complying with the specifications developed for that product. This type of monitoring program can be developed in-house or outsourced.
A monitoring program typically includes a combination of pulling store samples for analysis, along with ongoing monitoring of certificates of analysis (COAs) for compliance to specification. Many companies utilizing supplier monitoring programs find that these increase the dialogue between retailers and suppliers, in addition to ensuring that the overall quality of all store brand products is maintained at the highest level.
Gina Nicholson: Store branded products have increased in selection and in customer purchase over the past five years for retailers. These products include both manufactured food goods and in-store prepared ready-to-eat foods. Unfortunately, these private labeled products have not been exempt from recalls, and [some of them] have even been implicated as the source for foodborne illness outbreaks. Establishing stricter controls and certification to GFSI-benchmarked standards on copackers that manufacture these private label food goods is necessary to reduce recalls and foodborne illness incidents and protect the integrity of the store brand.
New developments in technology and increased cooperation among government and the food industry have led to improvements in addressing foodborne illness outbreaks. However, prevention through training and a strong farm-to-fork food safety program must remain the focus of retailers as the globalization of the food supply chain poses new challenges.
Retailers face many unique challenges when implementing a diverse selection of in-store prepared ready-to-eat foods. Unlike a food processing or manufacturing setting, it takes people to prepare these foods in the retail industry. Behavior of food employees becomes the focus of both food safety and quality practices. Food safety and quality equal behavior.
To improve food safety, retailers need to focus on creating habit-forming food safety behaviors of food employees and measuring their behavior performance. Retailers need to go beyond knowing where the food is from; they need to know how it was produced.
NSF International has launched an innovative behavior-based food safety training model that has caught the attention of many leading retailers. In partnership with Cognisco, a specialist in assessing and developing workforce competence, NSF International combined leading research on human behavior and psychology with their expertise in food safety to design an intelligent behavior-based food safety assessment and targeted intervention model that helps companies build a culture of food safety.
Applying the science-based research and experience of world-renown psychologists and NSF International's food safety experts, the global retail program works with companies to motivate and train their associates to develop and reinforce behaviors and systems that protect and improve food safety across all locations worldwide
Why is this needed? An initial assessment of nearly 10,000 trained food handlers revealed that 41 percent of these workers still demonstrate a dangerous gap between their knowledge of food safety handling practices and their actual application of these principles in the workplace. Only by effecting change in food handler behaviors will retailers be successful in embedding food safety within [the] organizational culture and bring about meaningful improvement. Developing a positive food safety culture is the only way to protect a company's brand.
PLSB: Where do suppliers most need to improve when it comes to store brand-related QA/QC efforts?
Simmons: Store brand suppliers often have a standard offering in a certain product category and will promote this to multiple retailers. It is critical for the store brand supplier to fully understand the specific requirements of each retail client and then to deliver a store brand product specifically tailored to those needs. The customization could be as small as a label color change or as significant as modifying the actual formulation of that product to meet local flavor preferences.
Nicholson: Food safety and quality [are] equal to brand protection. Store brand suppliers are an extension of the retail company. Suppliers need to recognize that their ultimate customers are the people that shop the retailer's stores every single day. Remembering that their customers' health and safety come first is essential so addressing gaps in food handler knowledge and supply chain controls to improve food safety throughout their operations should not just be top priority but should be the foundation of the supplier's business practices.
PLSB: How could retailers and their supplier partners better communicate with each other to improve efforts in this area?
Simmons: Every store brand supplier wants to fully meet all retailers' needs. This can be difficult or impossible if the retailer has not clearly defined the store brand product and all the required product attributes. Once the initial product specifications are confirmed and communicated to the supplier, then an ongoing communication program should begin to both confirm the quality standards are being met and brainstorm ways to improve the product and/or lower the cost.
Nicholson: It's all about building a food safety culture. Retailers should look for supplier partners that share the same passion for developing and sustaining a food safety culture. Food safety expectations need to be communicated and be clear in order to be followed. Retailers and suppliers need to work together to ensure that proper controls, procedures and behaviors support safer food for their customers. The key is to have senior management's buy-in with every aspect of the retail food enterprise, including associates at retail stores, manufacturing plants and distribution centers all over the world — food safety should be top of mind for everyone.
PLSB: Any other comments?
Simmons: There is a huge upside potential today, for both suppliers and store brand retailers, as the U.S. consumer is more open to store brand products than ever before. Through an effective collaboration and partnership, suppliers and retailers can work together to grow the overall percent of store brands in every consumer's grocery cart.
'Retailers should look for supplier partners that share the same passion for developing and sustaining a food safety culture. Food safety expectations need to be communicated and be clear in order to be followed.'
— Gina Nicholson, R.S., NSF International