Product Assurance services help companies protect their brand while allowing them to push the boundaries of food innovation and maintain high standards of safety and quality in an industry where there are limited regulations on food physical safety.
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Food Safety Services OverviewAny designer, manufacturer, or brand owner in the food and beverage industry assumes some level of risk by having their products on the market. Risk can include anything that may negatively impact the company’s brand such as recalls, consumer injuries, lawsuits, fines, and general customer dissatisfaction.
Regulations react to the market and they are considered a minimum safety standard. Companies whose safety process is to only follow existing regulations are highly unlikely to eliminate and reduce many of their product hazards.
Any designer, manufacturer, or brand owner in the food and beverage industry assumes some level of risk by having their products on the market. Risk can include anything that may negatively impact the company’s brand such as recalls, consumer injuries, lawsuits, fines, and general customer dissatisfaction.
Regulations react to the market and they are considered a minimum safety standard. Companies whose safety process is to only follow existing regulations are highly unlikely to eliminate and reduce many of their product hazards.
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Our global team of safety engineering experts have been studying hazards and human behaviour for over 30 years. Our passion for keeping people safe and protecting our client’s brands is second to none. Our industry-leading research, methodology, and customized assessments have safeguarded the brands of our clients for decades, allowing them to push the boundaries of innovation while we work behind the scenes to identify, quantify, and design out hazards of their foods, beverages, and packaging before they hit store shelves.
By partnering with Intertek Product Assurance, our clients have the peace of mind that their customers and their brands are in good hands, as we support them in navigating the unknown and often hidden hazards of food and beverage products.
*Intertek consulting services provided for Consumer Goods are carried out by consulting experts of a separate legal entity who have no influence over any aspect of Intertek Notified Body activities.
Our Solutions Include:
Intertek offers product safety training that provides insight into how to detect safety concerns and develop cost-effective solutions to minimize potential safety hazards. You will learn how to:
- Understand hazardous food characteristics better;
- Make food beverage products safer for consumers of all ages; and
- Identify and mitigate choking hazards.
Contamination of food from foreign materials such as metal, glass, plastic, or food packaging can occur at many points of the production process and potentially present a hazard to the end consumer. Our experts can help you understand the potential hazards associated with a foreign material, the severity of those hazards, and the ultimate risk to your brand. Our services include:
- risk assessment;
- 24-48-hour turnaround for foreign material reviews;
- medical expert review; and
- hazard identification and severity.
Some food packaging requirements exist to ensure that ingredients, nutritional information, and serving size are listed, however, there are limited regulations when it comes to the physical safety of food and how to provide an appropriate age recommendation. Intertek’s food physical safety specialists can conduct qualitative sensory evaluations on food products to determine whether their physical properties have the potential to cause an airway obstruction related incident. Our evaluations involve our team of experts:
- consuming the product and exploring the physical attributes;
- studying the oral motor patterns and developmental milestones of children;
- reviewing foreseeable use behaviors,
- determining appropriate age recommendations; and
- providing design recommendations that effectively mitigate airway obstruction hazards.
Manufacturers must go beyond taste and consider shapes, sizes, textures and packaging risks when designing new food items. Intertek can analyze food product characteristics to determine their potential to cause choking such as:
- size or shape;
- hardness;
- elasticity;
- lubricity or slipperiness;
- dissolvability; and
- tack.
We can provide tailored industry reports for our clients’ specifications. Some examples may include market recall summaries, industry trends, news and media content, etc.
Many foods will absorb or release moisture, once exposed to air. Depending on the stability of the food item, within days or even minutes, these changes may affect the choking hazard potential of the item. Our experts can assess packaging effectiveness and food stability to determine if the potential hazard level of the food changes over time or when exposed to various environmental conditions.
Understanding how quickly burns can happen and the critical factors that affect the temperature of the skin is vital to designing safer products for consumers. Food packaging, cooking instruction (or self-heating technology), consumer behavior and the food or beverage itself all play a role in the potential of your product to burn a consumer. Intertek can analyze how quickly a consumer may receive a burn from interacting with your food or food packaging and consult with your company to reduce the potential hazard severity or probability of a burn occurring.
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Airflow Obstruction Assessments
