As a manufacturer of consumable or topical products, your operation depends on quality food-grade oil.
A good white oil applied to conveyor, pan release and other operations helps you maintain safe working conditions; a consistently pure, water-white oil helps maintain product quality in creams, lotions and many other products.
But what does it take to produce a reliably high-performing, stable, water-white oil that consistently exceeds FDA standards for food-grade oil? The key is the quality system controlling the production process from raw materials to delivery. That is what an SQF certification stands for.
What Is an SQF Certification for Food-Grade Oil Suppliers?
SQF (Safe Quality Food) is a food safety management certification scheme created and managed by the SQF Institute that is used to control food safety risks. Once the food safety management system is implemented, it is annually audited and certified by a third-party certification body.
The SQF certification requirements are guidelines for a rigorous system to provide safe products for use by companies in the food industry. It is a global standard recognized by GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative).
As a manufacturer of food-grade oil, Renkert Oil’s SQF certification gives our customers confidence in the safety of our products. More importantly, it allows us to pass that confidence along to your customer base.
SQF Is Based on Strong Quality Management Systems
The basis of SQF quality standards is the internationally-recognized ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS). Companies large and small have gained tremendous cost and efficiency savings from these systems, which they are able to extend down the supply chain.
SQF is an ISO-based system specifically aimed at food safety quality. Another example is FSSC 22000, utilized internationally as a brand assurance platform for food manufacturers and widely accepted by accrediting bodies. SQF represents a similarly high standard.
The power of the SQF certification is its ability to impart confidence to consumers all the way down the supply chain and throughout the world, in the same way as other ISO-based schemes.
9 Benefits of Working with an SQF-Certified Food-Grade Oil Supplier
This confidence is the basis of many benefits of utilizing food-grade oil produced using a strong quality management process.
1. Risk Management
Any amount of risk your supplier tolerates in the production of food-grade oil is passed along to you. A strong food safety management system creates an environment of risk reduction that gives you and your customers peace of mind.
2. Credibility
ISO-based quality management systems (QMS) such as SQF are the gold standard throughout the world. Utilizing a supplier with an SQF certification gives you added credibility in new business development, especially when submitting bids in the public sector.
3. Improved Customer Satisfaction
When a quality issue arises, SQF-certified suppliers apply a CPAR (corrective preventative action response) process to quickly and robustly respond to your concerns. This rapid process minimizes the supply interruption, helping you maintain both the quality of your products and the pace of supply. Through its thorough recordkeeping and transparent reporting, trends are identified and focused on for continuous improvement.
4. Better Process Integration
In applying a whole-system process approach to production, your SQF-certified food-grade oil supplier integrates processes to improve efficiency. For example, Renkert Oil has dedicated systems to produce, pump and transport white oil. These processes are integrated to eliminate the risk of contamination so we can better maintain the quality of your food-grade oil supply.
5. Evidence-based Problem Solving
Applying trial and error at best, pure guesswork at worst, to product quality issues creates costly delays. By contrast, when your supplier applies an ISO-based QMS, you can be confident the problem solving process is based on observed evidence. This ensures a timely resolution and the gathering of further evidence to produce improved outcomes in the future.
6. Continual Improvement Culture
As you seek to continually improve the quality and efficiency of your operations, you need a supply partner with the same cultural orientation. An SQF-certified supplier gathers and consistently reviews evidence to continuously build upon institutional knowledge; this in turn advances development in efficiencies and cost savings that can be passed along to you.
7. Employee Engagement
Your SQF-certified supplier will have an all-hands-on-deck approach to problem solving. Employees who are hands-on in the production of food-grade oil are engaged in testing and implementing improvements. This creates a focused work environment at Renkert Oil that extends to you as our teams work together to develop process improvements.
8. Increased Market Reach
You can capitalize on the SQF certification of your food-grade oil supplier in marketing. Utilizing an SQF-certified supplier in the supply chain of your consumable and topical products is a powerful differentiator that can help you break into international markets.
9. Preparation for New Regulations
Working with a supplier that exceeds current regulations helps you stay ahead of the game when higher standards are enforced. For example, Renkert Oil’s SQF certification exceeded the requirements of the new FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) rules required by the FDA prior to their compliance dates.
Trust Renkert Oil as Your SQF-Certified Food-Grade Oil Supplier
Renkert Oil is recertified in SQF every year to ensure continuous improvement of our production process through management attention and auditing. At the time of writing, our last independent audit resulted in zero adverse findings and a 100 percent quality rating.
This was only possible with the step-by-step documentation of processes, consistent follow-up of complaints and issues, adherence to quality control procedures and a commitment by the entire company to perform.
That is what Renkert Oil offers you as your SQF-certified food-grade oil supplier. To learn more about our certifications and how they can benefit your company, contact us today.