Download The equivalence between “analytical certificate”

PESTICIDES SEMINAR
GAFTA HOUSE
FRIDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2008
WEBB JAMES SRL
Mr Stefano Trumpy
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
. The stated objective of the European Union, as far as food is concerned, is to
increase safety for end consumers through a more careful activity of risk
assessment (especially through the scientific activity of the European Food
Safety Authority – EFSA), which often turns into legislative measures (and,
thus, into LIMITS to be complied with...). This applies, for instance, to the
pesticide package, all the measures related to the issue of labelling and
nutritional claims, the forthcoming spice package, and so on.
. The newly promulgated rule, which is effective from 1st September 2008, is the
harmonization at a European level of about 98% of the principles in force in
Member States, while a few Countries, such as Italy, already had a
comprehensive law on pesticides since 1985.
EU --> THE GREATEST PROTECTION OF END CONSUMERS
PHILOSOPHY TO BE APPLIED
Food chain operators must (necessarily) consider the regulations on food as
opportunities of market growth, consolidation and protection by extra-European
processors and traders, who are remarkably competitive as far as cost reduction is
concerned, but who are not able to offer the (high) food safety guarantees required
by the EU. Moreover, a safe activity of the operators from the world of spices
should be taken into account; this safety is acquired through the sale of products
that are actually consistent with existing regulations. As a matter of fact, food risks
are so expensive that they jeopardize the whole business of a company.
OPERATORS --> HIGH FOOD SAFETY = MARKET PROTECTION
Food chain operators must take any action, effort and investment so that goods
reaching the “points of entry” are consistent with food regulations, in order to
avoid any problem with health authorities (from the rejection and reshipment of
goods to their seizure and destruction) and the ensuing financial losses, and also
great losses at times.
OPERATORS --> GUARANTEED PRODUCTS
AT “POINTS OF ENTRY”
WITH FEWER PROBLEMS WITH HEALTH AUTORITIES AND LOWER
EXPENSES
Food chain operators must be certain that buying a better product and thus
paying a higher price will, in any case, be more cost-effective than having to
cope with the destruction of the lot or its sale (selling-off) in other non-EU
Countries (bearing in mind that regulations prohibit it – therefore, it is advisable
to contemplate DDP quarantine).
OPERATORS --> HIGHER COSTS TO BUY GUARANTEED GOODS MEAN
HIGHER SAVINGS (= FEWER PROBLEMS)
SUPPLIER APPROVAL
CATEGORY” OF SUPPLIERS:
* Implement a direct auditing plan in the Countries of Origin, aimed at
understanding whether, besides single preparation, company organization and
work method, there are other conditions really allowing control or non-control of
pesticides.
The Supplier must be aware of the problem (pesticides) and be able to check
that the product is coming from specific cultivations or at least is not
“accidentally” bought on the local market, but rather knowing the field of origin
and the specific cautions used by the “farmers” (e.g. use of active substances
with high maximum residue levels, compliance with doses and withholding
periods, environments that are neither polluted nor subject to the “drift” of active
substances from other neighbouring crops or irrigation water, pesticide-less
cultivation techniques, use of “cultivar” that are more resistant to infestations,
etc.). In addition, the Supplier must necessarily guarantee that the supplied
product is compliant when entering the EU and its quality is guaranteed at
destination.
* Give up self-audit systems through documents to be e-mailed to
Suppliers and filled in by them. They are absolutely unreliable!
* Only approve “processors” or, better, direct producers and processors; a
several- year experience showed that it is expedient and advisable to
turn to direct
producers and processors, rather than to original
traders (exporters), who
entrust third parties with cultivations and
thus have less control on the quality of the product.
* Clearly inform the Suppliers that supplied products should be compliant
with EU regulations on pesticides. (Almost) certainly the products sold
so far, with the
exception of wild collections, even though they led to
no claims for pesticides, are very probably illegal.
We must realize that up to now the “compliance” of a product and thus
of a
supplier was facilitated by the fact that no analysis to
determine pesticide
residues was carried out either by official
control authorities or by food
operators.
* Advise one’s own approved suppliers NOT TO USE pesticides in growing
and,
should it not be possible, suggest a list of “allowed” pesticides
that have “high”
maximum residue limits according to law. In practice,
all non-allowed products
need to be excluded, especially those whose
residue limits are very low
(0.01mg/kg).
BUYING POLICY
* TENDERS” – It will not be possible to “put out to tender” (i.e. to send a
request to several companies and bargain the lowest price) any longer.
You will realize that it will be very difficult to find Suppliers able to
guarantee products complying with the regulations and, in some Countries
of Origin, they will not be more than one or two.
* PURCHASES” – Only buy from approved Suppliers, who proved to be
aware of the problem, to be able to carry out analyses through EU
laboratories, to give real guarantees, to be ready to be sent back a noncompliant lot, etc.
* PRICE” – The price of guaranteed products will certainly be higher. The
reason is due to the fact that, even though they are the same type of
product, a compliant lot and a non-compliant lot actually belong to two
completely different markets and should, in actual fact, be considered as
different products in all respects. To this aim, it is important to observe
that some Countries generally send offers or price lists of products
guaranteed as pesticide-free and of the same products that are not
guaranteed as pesticide-free. To this it must be added that the Suppliers
able to give reliable guarantees are the more organized and therefore more
expensive.
GUARANTEE ON PURCHASE/PAYMENT
CONTRACT AND GUARANTEES”
* A real guarantee is obtained only through “payment after arrival and
approval” for non-European Suppliers, or, at least, partial payment. During the
years, we succeeded in obtaining good results only with the Suppliers, who
accepted to ship goods with the “payment after arrival and approval, documents
in trust” clause, thus they were thus really obliged to supply a compliant product,
under penalty of the obligation to reship the goods and pay all the expenses.
This resulted in their being really interested in having a control over pollutants
and, in most cases, we noticed that they used to send samples to European
laboratories before shipment.
* In the European Union, this problem does not exist, since the product
must comply with regulations in force. The responsibility to ascertain food
compliance falls on the importer, also when the importer has no analyses
or applies commercial agreements that are “commonly” believed to limit
the liability (such as IGPA SPOT CONTRACT). No commercial agreement
can limit law provisions in force, unless the product is contractually
intended for non-human food use. This also applies to any clause, such as
“quality approved at departure” or “quality approved on the basis of the
certification submitted by the Supplier”.
* In case of non-compliance ascertained through the analysis of the goods
at destination, the European or non-European Supplier is bound to take
back the lot and pay transport charges. As contract term, it may be useful
to state the laboratory, where the analysis will be carried out, to protect
both parties.
QUALITY CONTROL
* In actual fact, the trend of European laws on food makes it impossible to
work on the basis of documents only! The equivalence between “analytical
certificate” and “consistent goods” cannot be virtually applied any longer.
As a matter of fact,
* Certificates of origin are invalid, they only serve as an indication, or they
may be valid in special cases, out of standard practice (e.g. Sudan and
import certificates).
* The certificates, which are issued by EU laboratories, are reliable if they
are accredited by a suitable Control Authority. The analytical methods
used must comply with the instructions given by EU existing regulations
on the matter (which is often very complex!). We will see below what it
means to have an accredited method.
QUALITY CONTROL
* In actual fact, the trend of European laws on food makes
it impossible to work on the basis of documents only! The
equivalence between “analytical certificate” and “consistent
goods” cannot be virtually applied any longer. As a matter of
fact,
* Certificates of origin are invalid, they only serve as an
indication, or they may be valid in special cases, out of
standard practice (e.g. Sudan and import certificates).
* The certificates, which are issued by EU laboratories, are
reliable if they are accredited by a suitable Control Authority.
The analytical methods used must comply with the
instructions given by EU existing regulations on the
matter (which is often very complex!). We will see below what
it means to have an accredited method.
* Considering the fact that a laboratory analyses one sample of 100
– 500 grams, taking a “pinch” of only a few grams from this sample
(as in the case of pesticides) for a batch of goods of 10 – 20 mt, it is
clear that the sample must be taken with the utmost possible care.
There are specific regulations, which food chain operators must
necessarily refer to for sample taking according to the type of
pollutant searched for (e.g. mycotoxins, heavy metals, pesticides,
etc.). In some cases (e.g. aflatoxins), it may be advisable to carry
out a more careful and precise (and much more expensive!)
sampling than the one provided for by EU regulations, so as to
decrease the risk of untrue results.
* Taking into account the criticality at the time of sampling, we
should only rely on the quality control carried out by the company,
without using warehouse staff. We suggest you not to have third
parties - such as, a forwarder, warehousing company, or certified
sampler - take the sample.
* The better is the sampling method used, the higher is the
guarantee following the analysis and the higher is the certainty that
what we pay for and distribute is a consistent product.
* An analysis of the hazards and ensuing risks needs to be
performed on the different food matrices that are the subject of
corporate business, so as to focus the attention on real problems
and avoid losing time and resources on non-important aspects (e.g.
presence of pesticides in wild products). For the drawing up of
such as document, TIME and EXPERIENCE also gained through
direct contacts with the Suppliers (audit and quality inspections)
are required.
LABORATORIES OF ANALYSIS
* Use of EU laboratories accredited by Official Control Authorities only.
* What needs being accredited is not the laboratory, but rather THE SINGLE
ANALYTICAL METHOD USED!
* Since the analysis is an instrumental activity and thus it never is thoroughly
precise, it is necessary to know the uncertainty factor of the method in
relation to the analytical result found (that may occasionally reach plus or minus
20 – 30%!). We remind that, in some cases (e.g. mycotoxins), the result of an
analysis should be considered consistent taking into account the
“recovery” due to the uncertainty factor of the method.
* It is necessary to have a sufficient knowledge and experience to properly
read analytical certificates. In some cases, it may be advisable to ask the
laboratory for a suitable declaration of conformity that also takes into account the
uncertainty factor; unfortunately, not all analytical laboratories are willing to issue
this certificate (and a small part of them at least may also not be able to...). This
experience should also concern a proper interpretation of the law (e.g. for
product classification, the use of dehydration factors, etc.).
* To support the activity of assessment or non-assessment of a lot regarding
pesticides, the Web site prepared by the Official Authority
http://ec.europa.eu/sanco_pesticides/public/index.cfm, as well as the official
document containing the dehydration factors for spices and aromatic herbs
drawn up by ESA may be useful.
* It is necessary to identify among accredited laboratories the laboratories that
have a greater analytical experience in the field of pesticides and especially
spices, a food matrix that is not common and particularly difficult due to the high
presence of essential oils and pigments interfering in different ways, which
results in a modification of analytical results when the analytical method has not
been defined or applied with the necessary expertise.
* It is necessary to assess the performance of the analysis laboratories
used. If a ring test cannot be carried out, it is necessary to request a copy of the
ring tests performed by the laboratory (and required by the accreditation
protocol).
PROCEDURES FOR GOODS RECEIPT AND CLEARANCE
* Should the goods turn out to be not consistent at the time of importation or,
even worse, later at the time of nationalization, EU regulations envisage the
rejection and reshipment to the original supplier or the destruction of the lot. A
notification to Official Health Control Authorities is also required.
* It is allowed to directly carry out food controls at “points of entry” in
Europe on goods that are still in the foreign country, and thus before
nationalization, using bonded warehouses. For the above-mentioned reasons, it
will be necessary to use responsible and qualified staff for sampling so as to
have reliable results. To do this, for practical sampling purposes, it will be
necessary to store the goods in the bonded warehouse, and then carry out the
sampling after the container has been unloaded. The samples taken “from the
first row of sacks appearing when the container is opened” are a non-sense.
A PENALTY KICK IS AWARDED WHEN THE REFEREE WHISTLES
* In conclusion, it must be said that all the aforementioned statements are true
only if the Health Authorities of the European Union or of a single UE Member
State carry out serious and strong controls, so as to discourage “the market of
non-consistent products”. Otherwise, non-guaranteed products will appear both
on the market and on our tables, as it still happens today – the subject of an
“unfair competition”, against which little can be done, since it is impossible to
compete with the extremely lower prices of these products.
* It follows that “non-consistent products” will be considered as such only when
final Authorities or end buyers (e.g. supermarkets) will oblige food chain
operators to properly act, under penalty of exclusion of the Supplier and/or
measures for the repression of the fraud in progress.