Title : Risk based quality management in the global fruit juice industry fighting food fraud with SGF International e V
Abstract:
The main objectives of European food law regulations are beneath the high level of protection of human life, health and the consumers’ interests safeguarding fair practices in food trade along the supply chain. Therefore, “Food Fraud” is not a buzzword! As certain fruit juices are perennially named being within the Top 10 products that are most at risk of food fraud, the deviations reported in the literature are compared with SGF’s worldwide observations 2017. Successful strategies for our industry are necessary to meet these challenges and to avoid scandals and bad news for the fruit juice business. Therefore, a holistic view in raw material procurement is necessary, especially as modern food safety management systems like GFSI recognized schemes long for authenticity checks in their most recent versions. A useful ap-proach here is the participation in the Voluntary Control System established by SGF. Beneath the assurance of the supply chain from tree to bottle SGF’s work in research and de-velopment of new analytical methods, SGF’s role as central data warehouse of the fruit juice branch and SGF’s technical support in case of possible complaints or unjustified attacks rep-resent a holistic way to meet requirements of modern food quality and of a transparent market. A high-level market transparency in raw material and intermediates production is proven year by year by the results from SGF control work. The successful results from audits and analyses demonstrate the high addiction of SGF certified companies to authenticity, quality and safety. As example for SGF’s activities in R&D the technical background and best practice examples of SGF-ProfilingTM are demonstrated by the non-targeted identification of the geographical origins, the detection of foreign fruits and the indirect proof of sugar addition. A crucial service for member companies is SGF’s role as a central data warehouse in fruit juice business. Authenticity parameters are subject to natural fluctuations caused by e.g. the geographical origin. Various fruit-specific guidelines of the AIJN Code of Practice list A- and B-criteria with the usual variability of each figure in order to assess the authenticity and quality of fruit juices manufactured by usual industrial processing techniques. It is obvious that it is not possible to account for all possible variations due to specific geographical origins or climatic extremes. Therefore, two things are necessary in authentication of fruit juices: To have in mind the entire analytical picture of different parameters in order to assess the product appropriately and to rely on regional-specific analytical databases. One of SGF’s statutory tasks is supporting members in averting unjust attempts. This technical support of members ranges from phone calls to acting as independent claim agent between two member companies or third parties. In such cases SGF offers its members access to latest analytical techniques and highly qualified experts and auditors to aim at a joint solution of an issue.
