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This information can be used to develop food safety and quality programs that meet the requirements of modern Regulatory, Customer and Industry Standards:
When considering the development, documentation, and implementation of Stock Rotation and Product Release within food safety and quality management systems, the following information should be considered to ensure effective outcomes:
Procedures must be developed, documented, and implemented for Stock Rotation and Product Release to ensure older stock is utilized first. These procedures must include requirements for the appropriate rotation of raw materials, work in progress, chemicals, packaging, and finished products. Stock Rotation and Product Release procedures are commonly managed alongside systemic elements such as product identification and traceability and good manufacturing practices.
Stock rotation systems must be developed, documented, and implemented to ensure older foods are used first to avoid spoilage. This applies to chilled and frozen foods as well as other products. In general, you should apply the first in first out rule, or FIFO as it is commonly known.
Foods that have a relatively long shelf life such as tinned products, cereals ambient storage items are generally labeled with a Best Before date. It is not illegal to sell these foods beyond the nominated best before date, but the product may suffer organoleptic or physical degradation due to its age.
Potentially hazardous foods with a short shelf life in which pathogenic micro-organisms can grow are generally labeled with a Use By date. It is generally a regulatory offense to have on display, or sell food after the use-by date has expired, even if it appears to still be fit to eat. The Use By date generally expires at midnight on the date given.
The shelf life and date codes of food products only remain valid if the recommended storage and handling conditions have been met. This includes adherence to elements such as required temperature controls.
The application of an effective stock rotation and FIFO system will consider the following elements:
Product release policies and procedures are developed, documented, and implemented to ensure food products released for dispatch and distribution are safe and of substantial quality. The application of an effective HACCP Plan within any food business, should, by its nature control any potential product hazards or non-conformance issues before the Product Release step. In this context, it is important to consider that with changes to the way we manage the supply chain, sometimes through third-party transport, storage, and logistics providers, there are many opportunities for non-released food to be made available to consumers.
An effective Product Release Policy may include the following elements:
An effective Product Release Procedure may include the following elements:
Some products require analytical assessments before dispatch or release to customers; this is commonly known as Positive Release. Positive Release is a mechanism designed to ensure the safety or quality of finished products. This is commonly implemented to ensure every batch of product meet the specified criteria for physical, microbiological, and chemical parameters. In cases where Positive Release is required, policies and procedures must be available to summarize responsibility and methodologies.
A Positive Release scenario is common where a Certificate of Analysis is required to accompany dispatch items at the request of the customer. A Certificate of Analysis often contains a summary of the product’s conformance against specified critical criteria.
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Development requirements in relation to their items.
Document: A document provides guidance and/or direction for performing work, making decisions, or rendering judgments that affect the safety or quality of the products or services that customers receive.
Documented policies, procedures, work instructions, and schedules form the basis of any food safety and quality management system. The following documentation formats may be considered to ensure ongoing compliance with specified requirements for Stock Rotation and Product Release:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Documentation requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Stock Rotation and Product Release Templates section of haccp.com for examples of Stock Rotation and Product Release documentation, record, and resource formats commonly applied within food safety and quality systems.
Implementation: Implementation is the application of documented food safety and quality system elements into the actual business operation.
The implementation of Stock Rotation and Product Release within any food business requires genuine commitment from senior management, staff, and visitors to ensure the nominated goals of implementation are achievable on an ongoing basis. It is a step that requires significant planning and consideration of general and specific food business circumstances to ensure the outcomes of Stock Rotation and Product Release do not negatively impact the safety and quality of the food items dispatched from the business.
Implementation of Stock Rotation and Product Release must include a clear definition of responsibilities and authorities for all levels of participation by senior management, staff, and visitors to the site.
When implementing Stock Rotation and Product Release within a food safety and quality system, you may wish to consider the following requirements before completion:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Implementation requirements in relation to their items.
Monitoring: Monitoring is the act of reviewing and confirming measurable parameters of a defined process or product status.
Monitoring requirements within food industry sectors are generally identified against limits of acceptability defined within HACCP plans, implementation procedures, and work instructions. Monitoring usually includes some element of record-keeping, which may be maintained manually or through digital systems. It is important to consider that advancements in technology have spawned many systems and processes which are self-monitored and or self-adjusted when variances are identified. Regardless of the system used; The goal of any monitoring activity is to provide sufficient evidence that any limit of acceptability has been met.
Traditional Stock Rotation and Product Release monitoring requirements include manual recording and the application of corrective actions when the results of monitoring are found to be outside acceptable limits. Corrective Actions should also generally be strongly linked to the monitoring process where applied to ensure full traceability of the applied actions.
Common monitoring activities and record formats may apply to Stock Rotation and Product Release:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Monitoring requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Stock Rotation and Product Release Templates section of haccp.com for examples of Stock Rotation and Product Release documentation, record, and resource formats commonly applied within food safety and quality systems.
Corrective Action: Corrective action is mandatory action to be taken when a deviation to the Quality System occurs, particularly in relation to a Critical Control Point.
Preventative Action: At any step in the process where a hazard has been identified, preventative action must be put into place to prevent re-occurrence.
Corrective Action and Preventative Action is implemented to ensure that any identified non-conformance issues are documented, investigated, and rectified within appropriate time-frames. Corrective action is any action applied to regain control over a product, process, policy, or procedure that has been identified as being non-conforming outside nominated limits of acceptability. Preventative action is any action applied to prevent any identified non-conformance from reoccurring.
The outcomes of corrective and preventative actions should result in regained process control after effective application. Specified corrective actions are commonly linked to the HACCP Plans and the food business certification process.
Below are Corrective Action and Preventative Action examples which may be associated with Stock Rotation and Product Release related non-conformance:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Corrective Action requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Corrective Action and Preventative Action section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Verification: The act of reviewing, inspecting, testing, checking, auditing, or otherwise establishing and documenting whether items, processes, services, or documents conform to specified requirements.
Verification is the detailed review of all food safety and quality system elements to confirm that they are effectively developed, documented, implemented, monitored, and reviewed. All food safety and quality system elements, including documented policies, procedures, training, HACCP plans, and their operational applications must be verified on an ongoing scheduled basis. The verification process commonly includes a defined schedule for which verification activities are required, how often they are conducted, who is responsible, and detailed documented procedures for each nominated verification activity.
The general goal of an established verification process is to ensure any systemic non-conformance issues are identified and rectified within an appropriate time frame. When non-conformance issues are identified through the verification process, Corrective Actions and Preventative Actions should be implemented to ensure they do not impact the effectiveness of the food safety and quality system.
The following examples of verification activities may apply to Stock Rotation and Product Release:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Verification requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Verification Activities section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Validation: The process of gathering evidence to provide a scientific basis for the documented act of demonstrating that a procedure, process, and activity will consistently lead to the expected results. It often includes the qualification of systems and equipment.
Validation is the provision of evidence to support the limits of control or acceptability for food safety or quality parameters nominated within systemic elements. Limits of control or acceptability are commonly included within documented food safety and quality systems elements such as procedures, HACCP plans, and specifications.
Common sources of validation include regulatory and legislative standards, finished product specifications and customer requirements, industry codes of practice and guidelines, verified and validated research, historical product, and process control outcomes, and analytical testing.
The general goal of an established validation process is to ensure any systemic non-conformance issues are identified and rectified within an appropriate time frame. When non-conformance issues are identified through the verification process, Corrective Actions and Preventative Actions should be implemented to ensure they do not impact the effectiveness of the food safety and quality system.
Validation activities are commonly defined within the verification schedules and procedures of established food safety and quality management systems.
The following examples may apply to the validation of the limits of control or acceptability for Stock Rotation and Product Release:
You may wish to visit the Validation Activities section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Skills and Knowledge: Skills and knowledge are attributes of human interactions commonly linked to competency within any specified job-related task.
Training and competency requirements for Stock Rotation and Product Release must be ongoing, including regularly scheduled reviews to ensure the effectiveness of training and competency outcomes.
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Stock Rotation and Product Release should have knowledge including:
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Stock Rotation and Product Release should have skills including:
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Stock Rotation and Product Release should have access to resources including:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Stock Rotation and Product Release Training, Competency, and Resources requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Training, Competency, and Resources section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
haccp.com was created to support food businesses and food industry professionals in achieving and maintaining the stringent requirements of food industry compliance.