Quality Food Scheme + Boost Traceability, Food Safety Control and Management for Local Food Industry

The Centre for Food Safety has issued more than 75 food alerts and results of sample with irregularity since the start of this year. The foods not in compliance cover seafood, vegetables, sauce, etc., from Australia, China, England, France, Thailand, New Zealand and others. They were either stopped sale, removed from shelves or recalled by the traders. While food safety incidents happen regularly, citizens have been extra cautious as the COVID-19 persists.

Triple Confidence Using a Trio of International Standards

GS1 Hong Kong launched “Quality Food Scheme” (formerly named as Quality Food Traceability Scheme) since 2015, aiming to encourage food & beverage enterprises to adopt more stringent measures in accordance with internationally accredited standards in terms of traceability, which helps to enhance food safety and instil trust in consumers.

To help enterprises cope with the new normal in the midst of epidemic, GS1 HK launches “Quality Food Scheme+” (the new Scheme) with SGS HK as the audit partner. Under the new Scheme, participating enterprises are assessed based on more comprehensive internationally accredited food safety standards, including GS1 Global Traceability Standard (GTS), ISO 22000 – Food Safety Management System Standard, as well as HACCP – Food Safety Control Standard.

The Scheme report will provide companies with disease prevention advice, including industry best practices and how food safety management and system is uplifted through proper technology adoption. For example, enterprise may be advised to use appropriate sensing and analytics technologies for real time monitoring of the food processing operation, so as to strengthen the risk management control and enhance food safety.

Enhance Brand Image and Win Consumer Trust

While the existing “Quality Food Scheme” adopts GTS (Global Traceability Standard) as the main criteria for assessment of food across the supply chain, which is particularly useful for product recall management; the new Scheme takes reference to additional global standards including ISO 22000 and HACCP on top of GTS, and provides participating enterprise with an all-rounded review to enhance its current system and practices which help them to build brand image, reputation and win consumer trust.

GS1 HK has recognised over 20 enterprises every year to commend their outstanding performance in food traceability, supporting food safety in Hong Kong.

Industry Sharing

“The food and food services industry is facing many challenges, primarily the public trust in food safety. The launch of the new Scheme is a perfect opportunity for the industry to be appraised by 3 international standards, improve food traceability as well as enhance food safety management and control throughout the supply chain.”

– May Chung, Chairperson of Hong Kong Food and Beverage Industry Advisory Board of GS1 HK, and General Manager of Nestlé Hong Kong Ltd.

“As a major importer of chilled poultry in Hong Kong and Macau with 10 siu mei restaurants, food safety has always been our focus. We have decided to step up to join the new Scheme, to allow more extensive review on our food safety management and pre-monitoring system, which I believe will elevate our standard in that regard.”

– Patrick Tong, General Manager of Tong Shun Hing Poultry (HK) Co. Ltd. 

“In the new Scheme, SGS Hong Kong helps enterprises to engineer food source control, food operations and management in accordance with internationally accredited standards; identify and analyse the potential food safety hazards and risk, from raw materials to products, from manufacturing to handling process; establish control points and formulate monitoring system. They help enterprises to reduce and control risk, ensure product quality and food safety, protect consumers’ health, build and safeguard food organisation’s market integrity, and ultimately enhance competitiveness.”

– Ben Tsang, Managing Director of SGS Hong Kong

Please visit https://www.gs1hk.org/quality-food-scheme for more details.