Spotlight on Food Supply Chain at FSDF Safety Conference  

Robert Hardy of Oakland Invicta a key contributor to a new food safety Guide being developed in partnership with Food Storage & Distribution Federation (FSDF) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA), will address delegates at the FSDF Safety Management Conference in Leicester on Tuesday 15th May.

A dedicated conference covering key issues pertinent to the logistics industry, Director at Oakland International – experts in distribution and logistics and Oakland Invicta – specialists at reducing food losses due to contamination, Robert will offer advice, guidance and insight in to best practice for contaminated loads and how to reduce losses for those involved in the food supply chain.

Robert commented: “Load contamination has been an ongoing and continuing concern within the industry for more than 20 years, and with constant cases of migrant incursion continuing to rise concern over integrity of the food supply chain and brand reputation has never been greater.”

With over 10,000 different transport companies crossing the channel each year and over 5,000 trucks arriving in the UK daily, Oakland together with FSDF, food business operators, UK Border Force, the Police, the Food Standards Agency, the Fresh Produce Consortium and the British Retailers Consortium (BRC), have created the Guide to explain what steps should be taken when a vehicle has been infiltrated and what to do to mitigate losses and risk to stock and brand.

Chris Sturman, FSDF Chief Executive, added: “The Federation is very grateful for Robert’s contribution to our important Safety Management conference, and for the pivotal involvement of Oakland International and their joint sponsorship with four major retailers, of this seminal new industry Guide. This has been produced in collaboration with BRC and the Fresh Produce Consortium to provide greater management control and the co-ordinated involvement of Regulatory authorities over incidents of food contamination caused by illegal entry into vehicles. The overall objectives have been to minimise stock losses, whilst maintaining full consumer confidence in products moving along the food supply chain.”

Instead of outright load rejection when contamination has occurred, Oakland is able assess and recover on average 85% of stock and are HACCP and EHO compliant and have cargo checking facilities including CO2 analysis, heartbeat detection, swab tests and visual inspections based in Calais, so a load can be checked for migrant incursion before arriving at the UK Border.

Added Robert: “Using a company such as Oakland, which is 100% HACCP compliant, will mean you will be able to deal with your contaminated load professionally and without risk of cross contamination.

“By calling Oakland’s contaminated load helpline (0333 014 2850) free of charge, even if you don’t want to be involved in the process we will be able to give you impartial advice on how to handle the situation and what steps need to be taken or considered; if you wish we can take over the recovery process, working directly with the brand to mitigate the loss and for own label we can work directly with the retailer to assess the risk or ensure that the load is returned to the manufacturer or producer through our export control service.”

For more information and to attend the conference please contact the FSDF team by email: info@fsdf.org.uk or call 0118 988 4468.